Issues,
trends, events, ideas and journalism from the Institute for
Rural Journalism and Community Issues

Friday,
June 30, 2006

U.S. political
divide reveals two distinct Americas, say researchers

Political polarization will be the subject of an ABC
News special tonight at 10, with a report based
on the research of demographer Robert Cushing and journalist
Bill Bishop, who is writing a book about the topic.

Cushing and Bishop, an adviser to the Center
for Rural Strategies and the Institute
for Rural Journalism and Community Issues,
have developed and analyzed data that indicates the
nation is becoming more politically, economically, and
socially polarized. The two have dubbed their theory
"the big sort," and it hypothesizes that Americans
are segregating themselves, basing their choice of residence
partly on their political beliefs.

"The nation has gone through a big sort, a sifting
of people and politics into what is becoming two Americas.
One is urban and Democratic, the other Republican, suburban
and rural," Bishop wrote in the Austin
American-Statesman on Sept. 20, 2004. "Although
the split isn't true in every case, divisions between
city and countryside nationally are stark, widespread
and rapidly growing." Click
here for the Rural Blog Archive for September 2004,
which has an item on the article and a link to it.

New Medicaid
rule to require 50 million people to prove citizenship

A new Medicaid rule going into effect tomorrow will
require 50 million-plus poor Americans to prove they
are U.S. citizens or they will lose medical benefits
or long-term care. Many of them could be in rural areas,
especially African Americans who were born in the segregated
South.

The rule, aimed at reducing the amount of fraud being
committed by illegal immigrants, requires that a passport
or a birth certificate must be offered when a person
applies for Medicaid benefits, or during annual reenrollment
in the program for the poor and disabled, reports The
Washington Post.

"Critics fear that the provision will have the
unintended consequence of harming several million U.S.
citizens who, for a variety of reasons, will not be
able to produce the necessary paperwork. They include
mentally ill, mentally retarded and homeless people,
as well as elderly men and women, especially African
Americans born in an era when hospitals in the rural
South barred black women from their maternity wards,"
Susan Levine and Mary Otto write.

Attorney Clifton Elgarten filed a lawsuit to contest
the rule's constitutionality yesterday in federal court
ion Washington on behalf of the nonprofit social services
organization Bread for the City and
individual plaintiffs. The lawsuit seeks to prevent
its implementation in the nation's capital, where 140,000-plus
residents get Medicaid, report Levine and Otto. (Read
more)

Isolation
from facilities, institutions raises risk of obesity
in rural U.S.

"Residents of rural communities who feel isolated
from recreational facilities, stores, churches and schools
are more likely to be obese than those who believe they
are closer to facilities, new St. Louis University
research finds," reports Newswise,
a research-reporting service.

The study is thought to be the first to examine how
obesity and the environmental factors within rural communities
are linked, and it involved 2,500 residents of 13 rural
communities in Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas. Factors
influencing obesity included distance from recreational
facilities and other destinations, feeling unsafe from
crime and traffic and poor aesthetics of the neighborhood.
People concerned about traffic safety were more likely
to be obese, notes Newswise. (Read
more)

About a quarter of the people in the South and Midwest
live in rural areas, where obesity tends to be more
common than in metropolitan areas. A second Newswise
item about the same study talks about an urban-rural
connection: "The environmental attributes that
promote obesity are generally the same in rural communities
as those previously found in urban and suburban areas."
The item points out, though, that such barriers are
reported more frequently in rural areas. (Read
more)

Rural economies
see growth in middle of changing times, says report

Rural economies are still outpacing metro economies,
but a new report in The Main Street Economist
explores whether old development policies are best suited
for ensuring continued progress.

"The rural economy has enjoyed a strong upturn
since 2003. Growth in income and jobs has been stronger
in rural America than in metro areas (Chart 1).1 In
’04 and ’05, rural incomes grew 2.8 percent
a year (vs. 2.5 percent in metro areas). Jobs were added
at a 1.3 percent annual pace (1.2 percent in metro areas).The
rural growth appears broad-based, though clearly paced
by growth in high-skill jobs and new activity in recreational
areas," write Mark Drabenstott and Jason Henderson.

The report notes rural America's reliance on commodity
agriculture, natural resource extraction, and labor-intensive
manufacturing. "Globalization challenges all three—forcing
U.S. producers to slash costs to stay competitive. Thus
a pattern of consolidation is the norm throughout the
countryside. Farms get bigger and fewer. Coal mines
in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin produce more coal
with bigger shovels and trucks, but fewer workers. Taken
together, these shifts mean fewer and fewer rural communities
can tie their economic future to the economic engines
of the past," write Drabenstott and Henderson.
(Read
more)

Ethanol
craze seen as possible benefit for cattle industry;
support mixed

Corn is becoming quite a hot crop in the Midwest, as
states such as Iowa start producing ethanol as an alternative
fuel. At the same time, the nation's cattle industry
sees an opportunity to gain nutritious feed.

"For ethanol plants, like the 50-million-gallon
facility being built in this southwest Iowa town (Shenandoah),
it's beneficial to sell the co-product locally instead
of having to ship it to different parts of the country.
Therefore, the opportunity is there for increased feedlots
and larger cow/calf operations," writes Mike McGinnis,
markets editor of Agriculture Online.
Speculation is that the cattle industry will try to
negotiate for good prices, because the feed from the
plants produces more energy than corn. (Read
more)

With ethanol being proposed as something to help alleviate
concerns over high gas prices, there is discussion on
the federal level about supporting production plants.
"Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Friday that
ethanol doesn't need its federal subsidy, given the
current high prices that the corn-based fuel is fetching.
But he said that some subsidies will still be needed
to attract long-term investment after the current 51-cent-per-gallon
tax credit expires in four years," writes Philip
Brasher in the Washington Farm Report.
(Read
more)

The Wisconsin State Legislature's Joint Finance Committee
recently rejected a proposal from Governor Jim Doyle
to provide grants to encourage gasoline stations in
the state to install more gas pumps equipped for ethanol
use. "In March, the State Senate basically killed
a bill that would have required all regular gasoline
sold in the state contain at least 10 percent ethanol,"
writes Bob Meyer of The Brownfield Network.
(Read
more)

Rural bookstores,
other retailers thrive in Iowa via power of the Internet

Rural Iowa is home to an emerging trend where storefront
businesses are thriving in sparsely populated areas
by opening their doors to sales on the Internet, with
some doing 95 percent of their business online.

When one such bookstore opened up in Soldier, residents
and businesses found they could buy anything they wanted.
"Small-town librarians showed up with their limited
budgets and started buying books. Rural folks who needed
a mystery or a self-help book suddenly found the place,"
writes Mike Kilen of Gannett News Service.

Many retailers are seeing a connection between an online
presence and a good reputation, reports Kilen. online
presence created a welcome surprise. "The store
lends credence to our Web site," said Brad McKee,
owner of Amish Corners in Drakesville,
a spot in the road in southeast Iowa. "It tells
people we are a business and I'm not doing this out
of my basement. That shores up their confidence."
(Read
more)

Scottsburg,
Ind., is prime example of public-sector broadband access

"Scottsburg, Ind., Mayor Bill Graham didn’t
want to be in the telecommunications business, but what
options did he have? Unable to get the high-speed Internet
service they needed, businesses in his town of 6,040
were about to leave. And unable to get the private sector
to provide that service, it fell to the town to build
its own system," writes Thomas D. Rowley, a fellow
at the Rural Policy Research Institute.

"Even more depressing, 18 months of studying the
situation led only to the conclusion that it would cost
$5 to $6 million to hard-wire a fiber-optic loop around
Scottsburg. Needless to say, the town didn’t have
that kind of money to spend. Finally, and fortuitously,
Mayor Graham found a company that could build a wireless
system to serve Scottsburg for a fraction of the cost
of fiber -- $275,000, to be exact. And by spending a
bit more ($385,000 total), the town was able to cover
the whole county and two smaller towns nearby as well,"
he continues.

"They projected 100 paying customers in the first
year; they got 500. Indeed, the system worked so well
and was so well received, that they’ve now expanded
it to serve seven counties," Rowley concludes.
"As reported here last week, 13 state legislatures
(including Indiana) have turned a sympathetic ear toward
the whining of private providers seeking to trample
the rights of municipalities to ensure broadband service
and all the benefits it brings for their citizens. Fortunately,
all but one of those legislative attempts have been
rebuffed and the 13th — in Nebraska — is
being reconsidered." (Read
more)

Columnist:
Small-town newspapers thrive by focusing on local news

"As metropolitan newspapers throughout this country
report decline in circulation, newspapers such as this
one, which focus on local news, thrive. Except for an
occasional feature and for spot news in the Nashville
paper, the local newspapers are where we find local
news," opines J.B. Leftwich for The Lebanon
Democrat in Tennessee.

“'Local' is circulation area. If The
Tennessean is circulated in Cookeville, there
should be Cookeville and Putnam County stories in its
pages. Local news is the reason the small-town newspapers
thrive," he writes.

Leftwich reflects on the Democrat's past: "Inside
pages were filled with personal item columns written
by correspondents in Gladeville, Centerville, Taylorsville,
Route 7. Society editor Margaret Brown filled other
pages with social tidbits. The staff crammed seven days
of news into one edition. Now, that was local news.
Nobody wants to return to those days, but the mantra
local news' should always prevail." Click
here to read both columns under the newspaper heading
in our reports section.

A Senate committee rejected an amendment Wednesday
to a bill that sought to prevent telephone and cable-TV
companies from charging businesses that want to provide
customers with high-speed Internet.

The "Internet neutrality" amendment, to a
bill making it easier for telephone companies to sell
television service, failed on an 11-11 vote in the Commerce,
Science and Transportation Committee, reports Bloomberg
News. According to the roll call, the vote
was along party lines except that Republican Sen. Olympia
Snowe of Maine voted for it. (Read
more)

Proponents argued that not enacting the measure hurts
the Internet's open nature. The amendment is expected
to appear again when the bill goes before the entire
Senate. If you care about this issue, now is the time
to report where your senators stand on it and perhaps
editorialize on the subject. The Rural Blog reported
on this issue earlier this month; click
here and go to the June 8 blog to see the archived
item.

Weekly newspaper
in North Carolina starts free wireless Internet service

The Pilot of Southern Pines, N.C.,
will start a wireless Internet service for southern
Moore County to "bind the community together in
a dynamic and compelling way with The Pilot's products
and Internet service," the three-times-a-week newspaper
announced in a story yesterday.

"The Pilot wants southern Moore County to unplug
and access the Internet's infinite space unburdened
by wires," wrote online coordinator Ryan Tuck,
who paraphrased Publisher David Woronoff as saying the
service will be accessible at no cost to everyone in
the newspaper's service area, whether readers of the
15,300-circulation paper or not. "It's just another
example of our commitment to serving Moore County in
a complete and comprehensive fashion," Woronoff
said.

The paper's Web
site averages about 5,000 unique visitors and 23,000
page views per day. "The online push has energized
The Pilot's staff, providing new and exciting tools
to tell the community's stories," said Steve Bouser,
the paper's editor. "We're determined to think
about The Pilot as more than a newspaper. It's an information
portal. The main thing readers will notice is that there'll
be lots of opportunities online to dig deeper into stuff
they'll read in the paper." (Read
more)

Later in the year, the newspaper will launch a fee-based
high-speed wireless broadband network to complement
the WiFi network," Tuck reports. "Woronoff
predicts that the launch of such a network, which will
utilize the cutting-edge WiMax technology, will be complete
by the end of the year." The Pilot's Web site says
it has been owned since 1996 by Woronoff, Frank Daniels
Jr., Frank Daniels III, Jack Andrews and Lee Dirks,.all
previously associated with the News & Observer
of Raleigh.

Rural veterans
travel long distances for treatment, due to few options

Veterans living in rural areas are driving long distances
for care they need to treat post-traumatic stress and
physical injuries, rural health specialists told the
U.S. House veterans subcommittee Wednesday.

"While the VA has more than 700 outpatient clinics,
only about 100 are in rural counties. And only 10 percent
of physicians, but a fourth of all Americans, live in
rural areas. Veterans' mental-health issues include
combat stress, readjustment problems and the need for
family counseling," writes James W. Crawley of
Media General News Service.

The Free Clinic of Goochland, Va., only treats those
veterans who seek dental care and who do not have health
benefits. Executive Director Sally Graham said more
rural health services are needed for veterans, who have
founded complaints about driving long distances, reports
Crawley. (Read
more)

Minnesota is spending $1.6 billion per year on children
experiencing asthma, cancer, birth defects and learning
disorders caused by environmental pollution that could
be prevented, a new Minnesota Center for Environmental
Advocacy report estimates.

"In one part, the report's authors use previously
tested scientific formulas to determine that the mercury
from coal-fired power plants alone costs the state about
$30 million annually in neuro-developmental problems
in children. This year, Minnesota lawmakers passed tough
new mercury reduction limits for power plants that will
be phased in over the next decade,"reports John
Myers of the Duluth News Tribune.

A 2004 Minnesota Department of Health study
showed that 13 percent of rural children reported having
asthma and another 13 percent reported symptoms without
actually being diagnosed. (Read
more)

Arizona
detective stresses meth evidence as key to protecting
children

About 75 Kentucky police detectives and narcotics investigators
learned this week about protecting children in methamphetamine
cases and preserving crucial evidence during a workshop
with an Arizona detective at the Rural Law Enforcement
Technology Center in Hazard.

The officers learned about interview techniques, proper
surveying of the crime scene and how meth affects children.
Detective Tim Ahumada of the Phoenix Police
Department's Crimes Against Children Unit urged
officers to document cases where adults abuse the children
and to file charges, reports Barbara Isaacs of the Lexington
Herald-Leader.

"One of the details Ahumada recommends gathering
for evidence is the height of the child, his or her
height when reaching with an arm and the distance in
the home between the child's belongings and the meth
lab supplies. Often, he said, defense lawyers contend
that the child didn't have access to the meth lab supplies,"
writes Isaacs. Workshop sponsors included the Rural
Law Enforcement Technology Center; the Kentucky
Alliance for Drug Endangered Children, which
is based at the University of Kentucky;
and Operation UNITE, a regional anti-drug
program. (Read
more)

American
beautyberry plant keeps pesky insects away, study finds

As
biting bugs swarm the U.S. and concerns over insect-borne
diseases continue, a traditional folk remedy that has
been used in Mississippi for more than a century may
help.

"Scientists at the United States Department
of Agriculture-Agriculture Research Service
housed at the National Center for Natural Products
Research at the University of Mississippi
have isolated compounds in the American beautyberry
plant, Callicarpa americana, that may keep
chomping insects away," reports Newswise,
a research-reporting service.

Charles Cantrell, an ARS chemist in Oxford, said, “Traditional
folklore remedies many times are found to lead nowhere
following scientific research. The beautyberry plant
and its ability to repel mosquitoes is an exception.
We actually identified naturally occurring chemicals
in the plant responsible for this activity." To
make a repellent for mass consumption, a product must
be registered with the Environmental Protection
Agency and there needs to be a cost-effective
manufacturing procedure, notes Newswise. (Read
more)

"Occasionally, an educational battle will dominate
national headlines. More commonly, the battling goes
on locally, behind closed doors, handled so discreetly
that even a teacher working a few classrooms away might
not know. This was the case for Pat New, 62, a respected,
veteran middle school science teacher, who, a year ago,
quietly stood up for her right to teach evolution in
this rural northern Georgia community, and prevailed,"
writes Michael Winerip of The New York Times.

New does not know how many people at Lumpkin
County Middle School questioned her teaching
of evolution, but at least a dozen parents, teachers
and administrators and several students in her seventh-grade
life science class sent e-mails and letters, stopped
her in the hall, called board members, demanded meetings,
and requested copies of a video shown in class, reports
Winerip.

During an April 2005 meeting with Principal Rick Conner,
New recalled: "He took a Bible off the bookshelf
behind him and said, 'Patty, I believe in everything
in this book, do you?' I told him, 'I really feel uncomfortable
about your asking that question.' He wouldn't let it
go.'" New said Conner told her, "I accept
evolution in most things but if they ever say God wasn't
involved I couldn't accept that. I want you to say that,
Pat."

Throughout the school year, New asked her supervisors
to read Georgia's science standards, which include calls
for teaching evolution. After she filled out a complaint
to initiate a grievance under state law, stating she
was being "threatened and harassed," she encountered
no more problems. "What saved me, was I didn't
have to argue evolution with these people. All I had
to say was, 'I'm following state standards,'" she
told Winerip.

Gerry Wheeler, director of the National Science
Teachers Association, told Winerip that surveys
of the group's members have indicated that one-third
of teachers "have been challenged on evolution,
mainly by parents and students. "A survey of state
science standards by the Fordham Institute,
a conservative policy research organization that supports
teaching evolution, rated 20 states, including Georgia,
with 'sound' evolution standards in 2005, down from
24 states in 2000." (Read
more)

$1 billion
coal-fired power plant to bring jobs, money to West
Virginia

A $1 billion coal-fired power plant approved by West
Virginia's Public Service Commission is
touted to provide Monongalia County with 60 jobs and
financial benefits totaling $105 million over 30 years.

The PSC said work on the Longview Power Plant
must start within three years and finish within eight
on a site near Allegheny Energy’s
Fort Martin plant in northern West Virginia. “The
PSC laid out conditions to placate three citizen groups
that have fought the project for years, including a
noise-control plan, proof the developer has the required
financing and a $3 million performance bond in case
the money runs out before construction is completed,”
The Associated Press reported.

The developer is GenPower LLC of Needham,
Mass., which specializes in advanced-technology power
plants. The plant appears to be the first coal-fired
plant owned by the company, which also wants to build
one in McDowell County, in southern West Virginia. The
state's approval of the site is “a sellout to
out-of-state developers, a tax scam, and a threat to
our health and well-being,” said a statement from
Citizens for Alternatives to Longview Power,
Citizens for Responsible Development and
the Fort Martin Community Association.

PSC spokeswoman Sarah Robertson told reporters, “The
commission believes this project could potentially have
great impacts not only on West Virginia, but on the
country as a whole concerning energy and the productive
use of the state’s energy resources.” She
said the need for Longview is “bolstered by the
commission’s belief that the United States is
overly dependent on foreign oil, has supplies of coal
sufficient to meet the country’s needs well into
the foreseeable future and that those supplies can be
used to produce energy to meet other appropriate socioeconomic
objectives.” (Read
more)

Natural-gas
company gets criticized for storming into West Virginia
forest

Natural-gas production is booming because of high energy
prices, but Equitable Production has
some West Virginians enraged after it ignored an existing
road to reach a new drilling site and carved a new mile-long
path through Kanawha State Forest, in Kanawha County
south of Charleston.

"Kanawha State Forest and Equitable officials
say an agreement is being finalized to compensate the
forest for trees destroyed in building the road,"
writes Rick Steelhammer of The Charleston Gazette.
"Kanawha State Forest Foundation
Vice Chairman Julian Martin, a frequent hiker in the
9,300-acre preserve, said he counted the rings of one
of the felled trees found alongside the unauthorized
haul road and found it to be 108 years old."

Kanawha State Forest is the only state forest where
timber harvesting is prohibited. The state Legislature
passed a law in 2000 banning logging in the preserve,
reports Steelhammer. (Read
more)

Backyard
ponds attract unwanted critters, but create booming
industry

Backyard ponds are becoming a craze in both rural and
urban America, but homeowners are finding their creations
attract unwanted animals such as raccoons and aggressive,
diving birds.

"The number of backyard ponds in the U.S. could
reach six million this year, estimates Aquascape
Designs, a pond manufacturer based in St. Charles,
Ill., up from two million in 1996. But as more homeowners
build backyard oases, more animals are treating those
ponds as watering and feeding holes, as they dine on
the expensive plants and decorative fish," writes
Jane Costello for The Wall Street Journal.
Ways to combat the animals include water-spraying scarecrows
and plastic bird decoys, and even home remedies such
as hair clippings and mothballs.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates 15
percent of U.S. homes have water features, reports Costello.
Sales of water-gardening products have doubled to $870
million per year during the past decade, according to
the National Gardening Association.
(Read
more) Thanks to Al Tompkins of the Poynter
Institute for leading us to this story.

A proposed residential development in St. Croix County,
Wisconsin's fastest growing county, would be the first
project under a new rural housing plan that aims to
preserve an agricultural appearance.

"The relatively new type of housing development
allows for a concentrated cluster or clusters of houses
on a large piece of real estate, with the remaining
land being conserved for use by all residents. It replaces
the traditional lay-out for rural housing developments
that carve up the land in individual chunks of land,"
writes Jeff Holmquist of the New Richmond News.

Rolling Hills Farm would include two miles of eight-foot
trails for residents, a public park, a wetland overlook
and native prairie grasses. The homes would be equipped
with environmentally-friendly aerobic septic systems,
and pairs of homes would share a well, reports Holmquist.
(Read
more)

Ohio farmer
busted for selling raw milk says law violates religion

An Amish dairy farmer in Mount Hope, Ohio, is going
to court for selling raw milk to an undercover agent,
but the man says the law forbidding such a sale violates
his religious beliefs, which call for him to share the
milk he produces.

Arlie Stutzman, who lives a pastoral region in northeast
Ohio that has the world's largest Amish settlement,
had his license revoked by the Ohio Department
of Agriculture in February. "In April,
he got back his license, which allows him to sell to
cheese houses and dairies, but received a warning not
to sell raw milk to consumers again," reports The
Associated Press.

Both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
and the American Dairy Association
report that raw milk poses health risks to humans because
it is not heated to kill bacteria. Raw-milk sales are
banned in 25 states, notes AP. (Read
more)

Tuesday,
June 27, 2006

Rural states
rank poor on annual child welfare list; solutions sought

Rural America is lagging behind urban areas in the
health and welfare of its children, according to an
annual report released today by the Annie E.
Casey Foundation in Baltimore.

Ten predominantly rural states finished in the bottom
ten in overall child well-being including, from 41st
to 50th: North Carolina, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia,
Arkansas, Tennessee, South Carolina, New Mexico, Louisiana
and Mississippi. The overall rank was based on factors
such as poverty, low birth weights and child death rates.
For the entire rankings, click
here.

Nationwide, about 13 million children are living in
poverty, and rural states are suffering from poor economic
conditions such as parents lacking secure employment.
In a story focusing mainly on Kentucky and Indiana,
The Courier-Journal reports that state
leaders see better preparing students for college and
the work force as one key to overcoming poverty. (Read
more)

U.S. Supreme
Court to rule on greenhouse gases; may affect power
plants

The U.S. Supreme Court is now considering whether the
government should regulate greenhouse gases, specifically
carbon dioxide from motor vehicles, and its ruling could
affect several industries.

The court will rule on whether the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency is required under the federal
clean air law to treat carbon dioxide from automobiles
as a pollutant harmful to health. A dozen states filed
a lawsuit to try and force the EPA to curtail such emissions
just as it does cancer-causing lead and chemicals that
produce smog and acid rain, reports H. Josef Hebert
of the Chicago Sun-Times.

"While the case doesn't specifically involve carbon
releases from power plants, environmentalists said a
court decision declaring carbon dioxide a harmful pollutant
would make it hard for the agency to avoid action involving
power plants which account for 40 percent or the carbon
dioxide released into the air. Cars and trucks account
for about half that amount," writes Hebert. (Read
more)

Al-Jazeera
reporters run into prejudice in North Dakota, producer
says

"In a country's hinterlands, a distant region
seldom visited by outsiders, a television crew investigates
why so many residents are fleeing the area. When local
officials catch wind of the crew's presence, they begin
interrogating people the journalists interviewed, and
pressure others not to talk. Russia? Uzbekistan? China?
No. This incident took place in North Dakota, in the
heart of the United States," writes Joanne Levine,
executive producer of programming for the Americas at
al-Jazeera International.

"When the sheriff of Crosby, a town [in North
Dakota] near the Canadian border, heard about it, he
contacted the U.S. Border Patrol. An
agent soon showed up at the local newspaper, asking
for the journalists' names. Other agents asked whether
they 'seemed like U.S. citizens.' The journalists are
Peggy Holter, Josh Rushing and Mark Teboe. They are
all experienced reporters, and they are all U.S. citizens.
So what was it that raised officials' antennae? The
channel they work for: al-Jazeera," continues Levine.

"Say that name in the United States and, likely
as not, the listener will practically shudder in revulsion.
Many Americans automatically think 'terrorist TV,' or
'Osama bin Laden's network.' They see al-Jazeera, the
Arabic-language channel based in Qatar, as the al-Qaeda
leader's mouthpiece, broadcasting his videotaped messages
of jihad," opines Levine.

"Yet the truth is that al-Jazeera is a pioneer
of news independence that the U.S. government once lauded
for bringing freedom of the press to the Middle East.
Now it's planning to broadcast worldwide, including
in the United States. But as its Arab owners work to
make that a reality, the prejudice here persists, and
those of us who work for the network find ourselves
running, at every turn, into resistance, rejection and
racism," she concludes. (Read
more)

Iowa leaders
search for solutions to stop declining rural population

New U.S. Census Bureau figures have
officials in Iowa worried about its declining rural
population, with some counties having lost at least
5 percent of their population from 2000 to 2005.

"Without enough new workers, the average age is
rising in nearly every part of those counties, while
school enrollment is declining," writes Dan Gearino
of the Globe Gazette. "Local and
state leaders are fighting to reverse the trend with
a two-prong strategy. First, they are using incentive
payments to attract high-wage jobs and encourage existing
employers to expand. Second, they are devoting more
time and money to improving recreational amenities and
revitalizing main streets, in the hope of attracting
more young families."

Shirley Phillips, the economic development director
in Sac County, said the state's rural counties are hurt
by economic challenges. Such areas lack four-lane highways
to transport goods to major cities, and she is joining
in an effort to push the state to expand U.S. Highway
20 across western Iowa. "The two-lane portion of
U.S. 20 is a major thoroughfare in three of the slowest
growing counties, Calhoun, Ida and Sac," reports
the newspaper in Mason City. (Read
more)

Copper-theft
craze continues across U.S.; cities are fighting back

"Call it black market alchemy. Water pipes, utility
wires, floral vases and rain gutters — all made
of copper — are being turned into cash at scrap
yards by thieves profiting off the metal's record market
prices," writes Christopher Baxter of The
Morning Call in Allentown, Pa.

Copper thefts are occurring daily in the U.S., and
the metal is fetching $4 per pound, compared to less
than $1 three years ago. Copper is considered the premier
metal for making everything from wiring to money, and
replacing it expensive with copper water piping costing
about $18 per pound, or about $6 per foot, reports Baxter.
(Read
more)

Municipalities across the U.S. are trying to crack
down on the thefts and one example is in Tuscon, Ariz.,
where city officials say trading in stolen metals for
cash at scrap yards and junk dealers helps methamphetamine
users pay for their habit. City law now requires secondhand
dealers to keep more detailed records and report transactions
involving items such as scrap copper to police within
two business days, notes Baxter. Thanks to Al Tompkins
of the Poynter Institute for leading
us to this story.

"Since the Iraq War began more than three years
ago, The
Leaf-Chronicle (circulation 21,154) of
Clarksville, Tenn., has seen it all. As the closest
daily paper to the Fort Campbell Army
post, where tens of thousands of soldiers in Iraq from
the 101st Airborne Division are stationed,
the Leaf-Chronicle has reported on deaths, deployments,
and disputes from Washington, D.C. to Baghdad,"
reports Editor & Publisher. The
daily,owned by Gannett Co., covered
last week's stories about three Fort Campbell-based
soldiers facing murder charges for alleged misconduct
in Iraq, and two others once considered missing but
then determined to have been murdered, reports Joe Strupp.

Leaf-Chronicle Executive Editor Richard Stevens told
Strupp that covering such stories can overwhelm readers:
"It is getting pretty weary here dealing with a
lot of sad stories, a lot of sensitive stories. A kidnapping
story can present a long, protracted search. Both of
these have the potential for being very sensitive stories.
Our community and newspaper staff is getting pretty
weary of the drumbeat of trouble." (Read
more) The Kentucky
New Era (circ. 11,090), a smaller, independent
daily in Hopkinsville,Ky., on the other side of Fort
Campbell, used coverage from The Associated
Press for both stories.

Kentucky
governor bans his employees from Web sites to boost
work

Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher is attempting to boost
workers' efficiency by blocking access to specific Web
sites on state computers, including at least three Jewish-related
sites and several newspaper blogs.

"Last week, officials blocked state employees
from surfing various Internet categories including entertainment
and humor, online auctions and Web logs, known as 'blogs.'
The state also blocked employees from viewing [Mark]
Nickolas' www.BluegrassReport.org,
after he was quoted in a New York Timesarticle
being critical of Gov. Ernie Fletcher's administration,"
reports The Associated Press.

State officials also blocked The Rural Blog, published
by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community
Issues. The director of the institute, Al Cross,
who is an occasional commentator on Kentucky politics,
was quoted in the Times story. "Cross said he would
not 'presume any motive' on why the site was blocked
but said it was ill-advised. The blog on the site is
not political in nature, Cross said," writes AP's
Joe Biesk. A poster on another blog said he was a state
employee whose access was not blocked, and other posts
indicate that the blocking appears to vary among agencies.
(Read
more)

The Courier-Journal reports that the
state's effort to block sites is troubled by inconsistency.
The state has not successfully blocked all TV, humor
and sports sites, "as shown by a reporter's sampling
of 50 sites yesterday on a state computer," writes
Tom Loftus of the Louisville newspaper. (Read
more)

Monday,
June 26, 2006

Ethanol
boom creates concern over food supplies, livestock costs

Dozens of new distilleries across the U.S. are using
corn to make the gasoline substitute ethanol, but an
extensive New York Times package uses
data, graphs and an energy-balance sidebar to illustrate
the trend's possible negative effects on agriculture
and food prices.

"The ethanol phenomenon is creating some unexpected
jitters in crucial corners of farm country. A few agricultural
economists and food industry executives are quietly
worrying that ethanol, at its current pace of development,
could strain food supplies, raise costs for the livestock
industry and force the use of marginal farmland in the
search for ever more acres to plant corn," writes
Alexei Barrionuevo.

"By the middle of 2007, there will be a food fight
between the livestock industry and this biofuels or
ethanol industry," said Dan Basse, president of
AgResources, an economic forecasting
firm in Chicago. "As the corn price reaches up
above $3 a bushel, the livestock industry will be forced
to raise prices or reduce their herds. At that point
the U.S. consumer will start to see rising food prices
or food inflation."

"If that occurs, the battleground is likely to
shift to some 35 million acres of land set aside under
a 1985 program for conservation and to help prevent
overproduction. Farmers are paid an annual subsidy averaging
$48 an acre not to raise crops on the land. But the
profit lure of ethanol could be great enough to push
the acreage, much of it considered marginal, back into
production," notes Barrionuevo. (Read
more)

Mine-safety
advocates say all workers deserve methane gas detectors

"Methane is the chief suspect in the explosion
that killed five miners at Kentucky Darby Mine No. 1
in Eastern Kentucky, but only foremen and roof bolters
carried detectors to warn of dangerous gas levels. Some
safety advocates, union officials, and the families
of miners killed at the Darby mine in Holmes Mill say
all miners need to have detectors," writes James
R. Carroll of The Courier-Journal.

Federal regulators and coal industry officials said
the Darby blast and the Jan. 20 methane explosion at
the Sago Mine in West Virginia that killed 12 miners
do not warrant more detectors. Federal and state laws
already require testing for methane every 20 minutes,
and mines must also test before every new shift and
before resuming cutting for coal, reports Carroll.

A portable device that can detect the colorless and
odorless gas costs about $650, compared to the breathing
devices given to each miner that cost on average $582.
There are other detectors available for use that will
cut off power to machines when dangerous levels are
detected. The new mine safety law signed by President
Bush did not address methane detectors, notes Carroll.
(Read
more)

A generational shift is occurring in newsrooms across
the U.S. with veteran reporters being replaced by young
journalists, and a lack of knowledge about past events
is hurting the product, opines Edward Wasserman , Knight
professor of journalism ethics at Washington
and Lee University.

"Pruning news staffs has become a managerial routine,
and shedding higher-earning -- meaning, longer-serving
-- employees a mark of fiscal prudence. They're getting
six months', maybe a year's pay, and they're gone. So
are their Rolodexes, their intuition, the stories they
did or meant to do and their deep familiarity with their
communities. With the growth in journalism positions
concentrated in the burgeoning Internet sector -- where
the focus on attracting the youth demographic is at
its most intense -- the new jobs that are opening up
are likely to be filled by people a generation or more
younger than those being shown the door at old media
operations," writes Wasserman.

"I had a conversation a year or two ago with an
ex-reporter, who had long experience covering national
security, about why his newspaper, one of the country's
best, had fallen into lockstep in reporting credulously
on the run-up to the Iraq war and had underplayed fierce
dissent within our government. He said, essentially,
that the coverage decisions were being made by people
who weren't acquainted with the Gulf of Tonkin incident
or the Iran-contra affair, or the other landmark late
20th century instances of official U.S. deceit or ineptitude.
So they got snookered," continues Wasserman.

"That was a disturbing answer. It made me realize
that managing generational change is a delicate matter
of achieving a balance of memory and energy, the seasoned
and the fresh, certainty and skepticism. It's a matter
not of lowering costs, but of carefully calibrating
a newsroom culture. And it's a challenge that, I'm afraid,
is being blown," concludes Wasserman. (Read
more)

Wal-Mart
to upgrade 1,800 stores, build 1,500 new ones across
U.S.

Wal-Mart Supercenters are constantly
springing up in rural, urban and suburban locations
in the U.S., and the pace is expected to continue, influx
with 1,500 new Wal-Marts slated to open in the next
five years.

Almost two-thirds of the locations will come as Supercenters,
meaning they will include groceries, gas pumps, drive-up
pharmacies and banking and auto services in addition
to general merchandise items, reports Jeffrey Sheban
of The Columbus Dispatch. Wal-Mart
also plans to remodel 1,800 stores during the next 18
months, which includes transforming many older locations
into Supercenters.

"In suburban areas, where most of the nation’s
2,022 Supercenters are located, Wal-Mart is building
them closer together than ever. In some markets, particularly
Dallas, the large stores are two or three miles apart.
That’s compared with the previous 15 to 20 miles
apart Wal-Mart thought was appropriate when its stores
were mostly in small towns and rural areas," writes
Sheban. (Read
more)

East Texans
fight to prevent purchase of rural college's classical
station

In the oil country of East Texas, Kilgore College's
classical music radio station KTPB
has just been sold to a California-based company that
plans to eliminate local programs and instead broadcast
a feed of Christian music and other religious programming
24 hours a day.

Educational Media Foundation Broadcasting
will pay the financially strapped college $2.46 million
over 10 years, and its plans are already attracting
complaints. Classical enthusiasts have formed Save
Our Arts Radio and generated at least 175 letters,
many of them forwarded to the Federal Communications
Commission, which must approve the acquisition,
reports The New York Times. (Read
more)

"The loss of a classical KTPB would be the latest
footstep in the decline of classical music radio in
the United States. Doomsayers see the trend as part
of a broader diminishing of the art form, although new
sources — satellite and digital radio and Internet
streaming — are emerging. In 1990, about 50 commercial
stations were on the air; the number is closer to 30
now," writes Daniel Wakin. For additional background
on this story, click
here for an article by Lester Murray of the Kilgore
News Herald.

Friday,
June 23, 2006

Small-town
newspapers thrive with innovation, avoid dailies' pitfalls

Lee Enterprises Inc. owns 58 newspapers
and is one example of a chain where smaller newspapers
-- like the Waterloo Courier in Iowa
or the Missoulian in Montana -- are
outdoing larger publications.

For some data confirming that small papers are outperforming
big ones, the Audit Bureau of Circulations
shows that "weekday circulation over a six-month
period fell 4.7 percent at Colorado's Denver
Post, but rose 2.5 percent at the Grand
Junction Sentinel; Florida's Orlando
Sentinel dropped 8.3 percent, but the St.
Augustine Record rose 11.2 percent; California's
Los Angeles Times dropped 5.4 percent,
but the Stockton Record rose 1.2 percent,"
reports Reuters.

"In many ways, community newspapers are still
enjoying the advantages that big metropolitan dailies
such as the New York Times or Chicago
Tribune have lost," writes Paul Thomasch.
"Readership has held up better, and fewer people
have defected to the Internet for news and classified
ads. The trick for smaller newspapers is to keep that
advantage, particularly as more local content becomes
available on the Internet, be it from bloggers or other
media companies."

Small-town newspapers are using innovation such as
The Monroe in Wisconsin, which allows
companies to run ads on one page with a related "how-to"
advice article on the facing page. The News-Press
in Oklahoma prints its city's visitors guide for free,
uses some of its own photos in the publication, and
then gets the ad revenue, notes Thomasch. (Read
more) In another example of innovation, The Rural
Blog reported on June 8 about leaders in Jonesborough,
Tenn., paying the community's weekly Herald
& Tribune to send a copy to every resident.
Click
here for the archived item.

New weekly
supplements show up in newspapers, enjoy success

Rumors of print media's demise may be premature. Just
ask Gannett Company, the nation's largest
owner of newspapers, which just witnessed a spinoff
of its magazine supplement, USA Weekend,
bring in more than $3 million in ad revenue.

The new USA Weekend HealthSmart was distributed by
76 of the 600 newspapers that carry USA Weekend (circ.
22.7 million), meaning it reached an estimated 7.5 million
readers with articles on allergies, asthma, cholesterol
and migraines, reports Stuart Elliott of The
New York Times. Through the first five months
of 2006, 338 new magazines came out, down slightly from
395 during the same period last year, according to Samir
Husni, chairman of the journalism department at the
University of Mississippi, who tracks
start-ups on his Web
site. (Read
more)

"USA Weekend competes against magazine supplements
distributed each week through newspapers that include
American Profile, owned by the Publishing
Group of America; Life, from
Time Inc.; and Parade,
part of Advance Publications. Mr. Husni
noted that the Publishing Group of America recently
introduced a sibling for American Profile, called Relish,
a monthly that covers food and is also distributed through
newspapers," writes Elliott. American Profile is
distributed largely in smaller and rural markets.

Pennsylvania
reporter gives armor used in Iraq to sheriff's deputy

When a reporter for The Daily Item
in Sunbury, Pa., returned from covering the Iraq War,
the paper did not want his armor to collect dust. Solution:
Give it to Montour County Deputy Sheriff Daryle McNelis.

McNelis will use the armor for training purposes and
for his duties with the Northumberland/Montour Drug
Task Force and the Columbia/Montour Strategic Tactical
and Response Team. Replacing armor that was at least
10 years old, the new armor is less than a year old,
weighs about 17 pounds and can stop a bullet from an
AK-47 at 100 yards, writes The Daily Item's Eric Mayes,
who wore the gear in Iraq.

Janet A. Tippett, president and publisher of The Daily
Item (circ. 24,226), said the donation sprung out of
discussions about ways to put the armor to good use.
The donation saved McNelis's supervisors more than $1,500,
reports Mayes. (Read
more)

Martha's Vineyard, Mass., is a hub for growth complete
with new vacation homes and plenty of commercial offerings.
However, a family with long-time ties to the area wants
its rural lifestyle preserved.

Multiple generations of the Mayhew family have lived
in Martha's Vineyard, and now brothers Jeremy and Todd
are speaking out in an effort to preserve some of the
growing community's past. "When the time comes
to raise a family, Jeremy Mayhew hopes that his children
will be able to enjoy the same small-town, rural lifestyle
that he has shared with many generations of Mayhews
before him. He wants them to be able to leave their
keys on the car seat, without locking the door, and
to be able to see all the stars at night," writes
Ian Fein of The Vineyard Gazette.

Todd Mayhew talked about why Martha's Vineyard attracts
people: "It's a safe haven. That's why a lot of
people love it here; it's away from the rest of the
world. But it feels like it's being leached away, bit
by bit. Each loss might be small, but if you think ahead,
in 100 years that's a lot of change." The Martha's
Vineyard Commission is about to start the public phase
of its Island Plan that aims to chart the Vineyard's
direction for the next 50 years and a public forum is
scheduled for Saturday morning at the Sailing Camp Park
in Oak Bluffs, Mass., reports Fein. (Read
more)

Wisconsin
Newspaper Association prints final hard-copy newsletter

The Wisconsin Newspaper Association's
weekly Bulletin is going completely electronic, after
recently printing its final hard-copy issue. Other state
newspaper associations already publish electronic-only
newsletters. Will more follow suit, and is it a harbinger
of the future for newspapers themselves? Now the Bulletin
will be available only at this Web
site, where 165 subscribers already receive the
weekly reports on Wisconsin's papers and on valuable
reporting resources. WNA Executive Director Peter Fox
attributed the move to the $50,000 spent on printing
and mailing the newsletter.

Thursday,
June 22, 2006

Cell and
Internet phone users will help subsidize rural phone
service

Internet phone service firms must start paying a percentage
of their revenue to a federal program that subsidizes
telephone service for rural and low-income customers,
according to a Federal Communications Commission
ruling issued Wednesday.

The Universal Service Fund pays for programs to connect
schools and libraries to the Internet, and the FCC requires
phone companies to contribute 10.5 percent of a portion
of their revenue. The ruling increased the taxable portion
of that revenue by 9 percentage points for wireless
firms and it means that Internet phone services will
be taxed on 65 percent of the same revenue source. Vonage
officials said the ruling would add a $1 fee to their
customers' $25 monthly bills, writes Sara Kehaulani
Goo of The Washington Post. (Read
more)

A second FCC decision raised the amounts that cell-phone
carriers contribute to the fund, which will most likely
cause an increase in customers' bills. "Telecom
and media analyst Rebecca Arbogast of [the brokerage
firm] Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. said
cell-phone customers who average a $50 monthly bill
could see 50 cents added," the Post reports.

Biomass
energy's time may have come, if oil prices remain high

Ambitious plans are in motion in Washington and in
state capitals to run the nation's transportation system
mainly on alcohol produced from bulk plant material,
steering the U.S. away foreign oil and its accompanying
problems such as wars, global warming and terrorism.

"Scientists have projected that in the long run,
ethanol made from biomass could be cheaper than gasoline
or corn ethanol, costing as little as 60 cents a gallon
to produce and selling for less than $2 a gallon at
the pump," writes Justin Gillis of The
Washington Post. "But right now it would
be more expensive than gasoline, and the low prices
are likely to be achieved only after large plants have
been built and technical breakthroughs achieved in operating
them. Perhaps the biggest issue is this: Time and again,
the country has grown interested in alternative fuels
only to drop the subject as soon as oil prices fell.
Will the United States be able to make a plan and stick
with it for the long haul?"

One key question is how practical it will be to gather
hundreds of millions of tons of bulk material to supply
ethanol factories. Eastern Idaho produces plentiful
crops of wheat, barley and potatoes, and the Canadian
company Iogen Technologies LLC is eyeing
the Snake River Valley as one possible source of biomass.
A big source of biomass may be the leaves, stalks and
stubble left over when corn is harvested -- a material
called "corn stover." A group of young farmers
in Imperial, Neb., won federal and private grants exceeding
$3 million to study how to corn stover can fit into
ethanol dream, reports Gillis. (Read
more)

Government
accepts petitions to protect forest land in Va., N.C.,
S.C.

Federal officials on Wednesday accepted Virginia's
petition to protect nearly 400,000 roadless acres in
the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests.

Petitions also were accepted from North Carolina and
South Carolina to protect forest land in those states,
and now the U.S. Forest Service and
state officials will develop rules and take public comments
on governing those roadless areas during the next year.
The Bush administration proposed last year to open one-third
of remote national forest lands that were protected
from road building, logging and other commercial developments,
reports John Cramer of The Roanoke Times.

The 1991 Roadless Area Conservation Rule prohibited
road building in unless necessary for public health
and safety. "Mark Warner, Virginia's former governor,
was one of the first governors in the country to voice
opposition to the Bush proposal. Virginia has the most
roadless acreage of any state east of the Mississippi,"
writes Cramer. (Read
more)

Anti-strip
mining activists seek end to mountaintop removal in
Virginia

Activists opposed to strip mining are protesting in
Wise County, Virginia, for stricter regulations and
an end to mountaintop removal. State officials say their
criticisms might be directed at the wrong people.

National and regional groups opposed to surface mining
met last week with county residents to discuss taking
action. Proposed activities include: Protesting at surface
mine permit hearings where permits are approved; demanding
to accompany state mine inspectors at surface mine sites;
and urging Gov. Tim Kaine and state lawmakers to restrict
blasting activity, prohibit late-night mining and ban
mountaintop removal, writes Jeff Lester of The
Coalfield Progress in one of two stories on
the issue. (Read
more)

In a second story, the state Department of Mines, Minerals
and Energy said it does not rubber-stamp surface mine
permit proposals or give coal companies whatever they
want. State officials said modern technology helps enforce
mine regulations, and critics need to realize some issues
cannot be dealt with on the state level. Blasting standards
used nationwide were developed decades ago, and the
DMME's proposal for a federal study of possible revisions
awaits funding, reports Lester. (Read
more)

Homeland
Security ranks West Virginia last in disaster preparation

Federal homeland security officials, under fire from
big cities for not giving them the money they wanted,
ranked West Virginia last during a recent assessment
of how well states are prepared to handle disasters.

The Department of Homeland Security
reviewed every state's plan for combating a catastrophe,
such as a large hurricane or a terrorist attack. A team
of federal officials reviewed several factors, including
plans for evacuation, health care and communication
during a disaster. West Virginia was rated “not
sufficient” on 60 percent of the factors tested,
the highest percentage in the nation. "Forty percent
of factors were “partially sufficient” and
none were sufficient," writes Scott Finn of The
Charleston Gazette.

Louisiana finished second to last by getting "not
sufficient" on 29 percent of the factors, partially
sufficient on 67 percent and sufficient on 4 percent,
reports Finn. (Read
more) For the entire report, click
here.

Slow farm
vehicles and impatient drivers colliding more in Ohio

Although the amount of farms in Ohio is shrinking,
the remaining ones are growing in size, and farmers
are traveling long distances on tractors -- much to
the dismay of automobile drivers.

"Last year, 434 crashes in Ohio involved farm
vehicles and equipment, the State Highway Patrol
reported. Eleven involved fatalities, up from
six in 2004. Wayne County in northeastern Ohio led the
state with 20 crashes, eight of which caused injuries.
Under state law, tractors marked with an orange, slow-moving-vehicle
emblem cannot travel the roads faster than 25 mph. That
has caused some problems for those using modern tractors
designed to go faster," writes Dana Wilson of The
Columbus Dispatch.

State Rep. Jim Carmichael, R-Wooster, plans to propose
a bill that would allow tractors to travel faster and
thus deter some drivers from feeling the need to pass
them on narrow roads, reports Wilson. The bill would
require that the operators have a driver’s license
and that they post their tractor’s top speed on
a speed-indicator sign. (Read
more)

Rural
Nevada newspaper endorses legalization of marijuana
possession

A newspaper in rural northern Nevada raised some eyebrows
this week by endorsing a ballot measure to decriminalize
adult possession of limited amounts of marijuana through
regulation and taxation.

"In a state where prostitution is legal in certain
counties, bars are not required to close and children
can legally possess and use tobacco, objections to marijuana
legalization on a moral basis seem hypocritical,"
opined the Lahontan Valley News and Fallon Eagle
Standard on Tuesday. "Those who view marijuana
as a blight on society have yet to offer an effective
solution of how to stop its spread through society or
better fund law enforcement. Continuation of the ill-funded,
halfhearted campaigns of the past is little more than
veiled acceptance of its current widespread and illegal
use."

"The Regulation of Marijuana Initiative will appear
on ballots in November. It would allow those 21 years
old and older to legally possess, use and transfer one
ounce or less of marijuana. Penalties are also stiffened
for those who drive under the influence of marijuana
or sell it to minors. Use in public would be prohibited.
For a $1,000 annual license fee, state-licensed retailers
would be able to sell marijuana. The latest proposal
would allow adults to possession up to 1 ounce,"
continued the newspaper. (Read
more)

State Sen. Mike McGinness, R-Fallon, expressed surprise
over the newspaper's support for the Nov. 7 ballot question.
"It surprised me that a rural newspaper would do
that," he told The Associated Press,
noting northern Nevada's conservative ideology. Nevada
voters approved a constitutional amendment allowing
the medicinal use of marijuana in 1998 and 2000. Click
here for the AP story.

Wednesday,
June 21, 2006

Rural experts
urge senators to include broadband in next farm bill

Smaller communities must get broadband access to spur
economic development, a panel of rural experts said
during a hearing of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition
and Forestry Committee on Tuesday in preparation for
a new farm bill.

Jane Halliburton, of the National Association
of Counties and the National Association
of Development Organizations, told senators,
"Rural communities are forced to make do with technologies
of yesterday. For rural America to compete in today's
global economy, there must be implementation of broadband
Internet connections."

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, agreed that broadband access
is key: "Broadband Internet access is no longer
merely a desirable option in today's world," he
said. "It is absolutely vital for businesses to
operate productively and competitively, as well as for
the education of our children and a host of other activities
in rural communities." The 2002 farm bill allocated
$100 million in loans for broadband infrastructure development,
but that was repealed later, reports Jared A. Taylor
of AXcess News. (Read
more)

Grass-fed
cattle gives consumers best beef, benefits rural economies

Most U.S. cattle are fed protein supplements (steroids)
and pesticide-treated silage, grains and hay, but that
is not the case at Long Meadows Grass Beef farm in Knox
County, Ohio where cattle feed on grass and ultimately
become high-quality beef.

Using that farm as an example, Aaron Beck of The
Columbus Dispatch describes a model that is
starting to attract more farmers and beef eaters: "Cattle
drink water from a well that was drilled 180 feet below
surface. . . . The animals graze a temporarily fenced
area of the hilly pasture until they’ve eaten
the grass to 4 or 5 inches above the soil." Farmers
then move fences so that cattle will gravitate toward
a new patch of grass. That ensures animals are getting
the best grass, and humans are getting natural beef.

Jo Robinson, founder of Eatwild.com, said that people
who buy grass-fed beef are helping farmers survive.
"When you do that, you’re supporting your
local rural economy. You’re helping to preserve
a beautiful landscape and you’re making it possible
for small farmers to survive in your area. You also
begin to understand the hard work involved in creating
a good-quality product," she told Beck. (Read
more)

"Members of rural Appalachian households who lack
access to food or experience hunger are more likely
to be obese and have diabetes, according to an Ohio
University study," reports Newswise,
a research-reporting service.

Researcher David Holben found that subjects from households
with greater levels of “food insecurity”
had a greater body mass index (30.3) than those with
smaller levels of food insecurity (29). People from
food insecure households were also more prone to having
diabetes (37.9 percent) and being overweight (48.1 percent)
than those in food secure households (25.8 percent and
35.1 percent).

A total of 2,580 people participated in the study,
with 72.8 percent from food secure households and 27.2
percent from food insecure households. In 1999, the
year the Ohio University study took pace, 10.1 percent
of U.S. households fell under food insecure. Food insecurity
can lead to stress, obesity, diabetes and heart disease,
and also poor management of chronic disease, reports
Newswise. (Read
more)

Indian casinos
raked in revenue of $22.7 billion last year; schools
benefit

Native American-run casinos and resorts are a booming
industry in the U.S., with Indian tribes and state governments
seeing billions of dollars in the revenue column.

Indian gaming brought in $22.7 billion in revenue in
2005, up 15.6 percent from 2004, according to the Indian
Gaming Industry Report. The independent industry report
found that state and local governments in the 30 states
with such casinos netted $1 billion-plus from fees and
revenue-sharing agreements, a 20 percent increase from
2004, writes Kavan Peterson of Stateline.org.
(Read
more)

States and Native American tribes are finding that gambling
can generate money for schools and other public services.
Indian gaming got a boost when Congress voted in 1988
to uphold tribes' right to operate casinos on reservations.
Since then, 227 tribes have opened 420 facilities in
30 states, reports Peterson.

Iowa children
near livestock farms risk getting asthma, says study

"Children who attend school near large-scale livestock
farms known as concentrated animal feeding operations
(CAFOs) may be at a higher risk for asthma, according
to a new study by University of Iowa
researchers," reports Newswise,
a research-reporting service.

"Previous research has shown increased rates of
asthma among children living in rural areas of Iowa
and the United States," said Joel Kline, M.D.,
professor of internal medicine at Iowa. "Given
that CAFOs release inflammatory substances that can
affect the health of workers at these facilities and
the air quality of nearby communities, we were interested
in whether there was a connection between CAFOs and
increased rates of asthma among kids in rural areas."

Researchers found 12 children (19.7 percent) with physician-diagnosed
asthmafrom the study school located near a CAFO and
18 children (7.3 percent) from the control school. Using
the broadest definition of asthma (physician diagnosis,
asthma-like symptoms or asthma medication use) the rate
was 24.6 percent at the study school and 11.7 percent
at the control school. Iowa's overall rate of physician-diagnosed
asthma is 6.7 percent, reports Newswise. (Read
more)

In a fast-growing corridor of Scott County, Kentucky
one residential development is aiming to provide all
of life's necessities within walking distance, as an
example of growth guided by "new urbanism."

New urbanism is occurring in several areas of Kentucky,
and the rising price of gas is spurring this trend,
reports Marcus Green of The Courier-Journal.
Architect Steve Austin, a consultant and president of
Bluegrass Tomorrow, a Central Kentucky
planning group, said, "As gas goes towards $3 a
gallon, having anything that you can walk to in your
neighborhood is a cost-saving amenity." (Read
more)

"New urbanism traces its roots to the 1970s and
1980s, when planners and architects began conceiving
neighborhoods with town centers harkening back to earlier
American cities. The movement has spawned projects such
as Florida's Seaside, the coastal development awash
in pastel colors where the Jim Carrey movie The
Truman Show was filmed. But some projects have
drawn criticism for establishing neighborhoods cut off
from larger communities -- all while gobbling up undeveloped
land," writes Green.

Fired up by blackwater spills in eastern Kentucky,
members of Mountain Justice Summer
are distributing magnets with two 800-numbers for government
enforcement agencies to coalfield residents.

"The first number is a 24-hour hotline for reporting
blackwater spills to the Kentucky Emergency Response
Team (1-800-928-2380). The second number is for reporting
overweight coal trucks to Kentucky Vehicle Enforcement
(1-800-928-2402)," according to a press release
from the group. The magnets are an effort to increase
awareness and enforcement of legal violations common
among coal companies.

According to the Kentucky Department for Natural Resources
Web site, blackwater spills "are of great concern
due to their effect on the environment and the citizens
who live in Kentucky's coalfield regions. Spills impact
water quality, harm aquatic life and damage environmental
health." Overweight trucks pose threats to motorists
and they damage publicly-owned roads and bridges.

Mountain Justice Summer aims to end mountain top removal
mining and includes members in West Virginia, Virginia,
Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina. For more information,
click
here.

Tuesday,
June 20, 2006

Nation sees
30 percent drop in meth lab seizures, positive drug
tests

Methamphetamine use is a major problem in rural America,
but reports released Monday show a big drop in seizures
of manufacturing labs and in the number of people testing
positive for the drug in the workplace.

"The number of meth lab busts plummeted more that
30 percent last year as most states put in place laws
to restrict the sale of over-the-counter cold medicines
used to make meth, according to the Drug Enforcement
Administration's El Paso Intelligence Center,"
reports The Associated Press. Quest
Diagnostics Inc., the nation's largest drug
testing company, reported that the number of job applicants
and workers who tested positive for meth dropped 31
percent during the first five months of this year based
on 3 million tests.

Meth lab seizures totaled 12,185 last year, down from
17,562 in 2004, with the predominantly rural states
Oklahoma, Montana and Washington posting some of the
biggest drops. Several states passed laws last year
restricting the sales of cold medicines, which contain
ingredients used in making meth. At present, 37 states
have such laws, notes AP. (Read
more)

Crack cocaine
joins meth as drug problem for rural West Virginia

"Methamphetamine has ravaged many West Virginia
communities in recent years. Now rural areas are coping
with a scourge more associated with big cities: crack
cocaine," writes Michael A. Jones of the Daily
Mail in Charleston.

Mason County Sheriff Scott Simms sees crack cocaine
usage as "10 times the problem meth is," and
he attributed the drug's presence to the increasing
influence of big-city crack dealers relocating to rural
areas. In many cases, law enforcement officials think
the dealers start off in bigger cities and then find
the nearby rural areas, reports Jones.

West Virginia police have experienced great success
in stopping the spread of meth, but they find crack
cocaine dealers are relentless in trying to turn a profit.
Many rural law enforcement agencies also struggle with
low staffing numbers that hinder their drug-fighting
efforts, writes Jones. (Read
more)

Wal-Mart
changes rural Arkansas town from Bible Belt to melting
pot

Arkansas's northwest corner is traditionally seen as
its Bible Belt, and Benton County boasts 39 Baptist,
27 United Methodist and 20 Assembly of God churches.
However, with the retail giant Wal-Mart
in town, the times, they are a-changin'.

"Recruited from around the country as workers
for Wal-Mart or one of its suppliers, hundreds of which
have opened offices near the retailer's headquarters
here, a growing number of Jewish families have become
increasingly vocal proponents of religious neutrality
in the county. They have asked school principals to
rename Christmas vacation as winter break (many have)
and lobbied the mayor's office to put a menorah on the
town square (it did)," writes Michael Barbaro of
The New York Times.

"Wal-Mart has transformed small towns across America,
but perhaps its greatest impact has been on Bentonville,
where the migration of executives from cities like New
York, Boston and Atlanta has turned this sedate rural
community into a teeming mini-metropolis populated by
Hindus, Muslims and Jews," reports Barbaro. The
county's first synagogue opened two years ago and its
roughly 100 members represent a religion that continues
to mystify the rural area. (Read
more)

Indian tribes
succeed at opening colleges despite rural isolation

"Tribal colleges -- schools owned and run by Indian
tribes that are often located on reservations -- are
growing, stemming in part from economic clout spurred
in some cases by Indian gaming and a desire by tribes
to validate their sovereign status," reports The
Associated Press.

No such colleges existed prior to 1968, but American
Indians' interest in higher education spurred a development
that now includes more than three dozen colleges in
the U.S. and one in Canada. American Indian enrollment
in universities has more than doubled in the past 25
years, including a 62 percent jump at tribal colleges
in the past decade, according to the National
Center for Education Statistics.

Tribal colleges often face an uncertain future, though,
because of rural isolation, limited property tax bases,
and neglect from state governments, reports AP. Seven
have failed in the past 25 years, but another 17 have
opened. (Read
more)

Wind energy
projects stay popular in rural areas; what about drawbacks?

Wind energy offers emissions-free electricity and is
seen as a moneymaker for rural areas, but drawbacks
such as dead birds and bats are fueling a call for more
studies on its economic and environmental effects.

"Among the sites being considered for wind turbines
in Appalachian states is Highland County, where the
first wind farm in Virginia has been proposed. Opponents
say the 19-turbine project would industrialize Highland
County, a pastoral and sparsely populated setting of
rugged peaks and valleys where sheep outnumber people.
Supporters say the project would pump about $200,000
in tax revenue into the county's ailing economy. State
officials are reviewing the proposal, which faces lawsuits
from opponents," writes John Cramer of The
Roanoke Times.

"Less than 5 percent of the potential wind energy
in the country lies east of the Mississippi, according
to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, but development
of wind power in the East is a high priority for the
U.S. Department of Energy. Wind produces
less than 1 percent of all electricity in the United
States, but the American Wind Energy Association,
the industry's trade group, predicts it will increase
to 6 percent by 2020," reports Cramer. (Read
more)

Wineries
dot rural Texas landscape; 2003 law opened up dry counties

A stroll down highways in rural Texas used to involve
passing housing developments, billboards and other various
sights, but now the countryside is fast becoming home
to food and wine establishments.

"Increasingly, wine-grape growers are putting
down roots, committed to cultivating the Mediterranean
grape varieties that can thrive in the area's Hickory
Sands soil and warm weather," writes Bonnie Walker
of the San Antonio Express-News. "From
one lone acre planted in 1998, in Don Pullum's Akashic
Vineyard, Mason County now boasts more than 100 acres
of wine grapes and seven growers."

Wineries such as the one owned by Scott Haupert in
the mostly dry Mason County, about 40 miles from Fredericksburg,
resulted from legislation passed in 2003 that loosened
regulations on wineries in dry counties. In addition
to selling their own products, the 2003 law allows people
like Haupert to sell other Texas wines, "as long
as they are made with 75 percent Texas fruit,"
notes Walker. (Read
more)

People smuggling drugs and humans into the U.S. from
Mexico have switched from major highways to rural routes
because of increased security, and national parks in
the southern U.S. are being damaged.

"Thousands of people now cross on foot. They leave
piles of trash, build fires, damage the park's famous
cacti and create countless trails through the fragile
desert vegetation. Park workers spend most of their
time backing up Border Patrol officers and dealing with
border issues," writes Jennifer Talhelm of The
Associated Press.

In order to improve homeland security after 9/11, the
U.S. Park Service has received $35
million in annual money. Park superintendents say costs
of dealing with security and damage are much higher,
though, and managers at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
in Arizona spend about $100,000 a year from its maintenance
budget to repair roads and barriers used by smugglers,
reports AP. (Read
more)

U.S. national
parks head for collision with new homes, businesses

National parks offer visitors a chance to escape noisy
cities and about 273 million people visit them annually,
up from 79 million in 1960. However, development is
edging closer to these sanctuaries and a collision may
occur soon.

Glacier National Park in Montana is just one example
of a park feeling the squeeze of development, as houses
and retail stores invade from the west and bulldozers
work on a coal mine in the north. "To the south,
an emotional debate rages over whether to allow oil
and gas interests to explore a sacred Blackfoot Indian
plot. From above, gradual warming continues to nibble
away at the park’s famed glaciers. Once as many
as 150, they barely number 35 today," reports The
Associated Press.

“If this keeps up, we may be looking at the National
Park Formerly Known as Glacier,” said Steve Thompson,
a Montana program manager for the National Parks
Conservation Association. An AP analysis of
census data reported that since 1990 more than 1.3 million
people have moved into counties surrounding the Gettysburg,
Everglades, Glacier, Yellowstone, Shenandoah and Great
Smoky Mountains parks. The average number of people
per square mile in those areas jumped by one-third.
(Read
more)

Rural Iowa
county runs out of addresses due to residential growth

Dallas County, Iowa is running out of addresses because
its population grew to 51,762 last year, up 2,300 from
2004, and now taxpayers will spend $260,000 on a new
address system for about 4,300 people in the county's
unincorporated areas.

As new homes have cropped up in Dallas County -- about
90 new ones have been built each of the past six years
-- some developments have been represented by just one
address; with each home given a letter. The county's
911 department reported problems responding to emergency
calls and said nearly nine of 10 rural addresses were
not pinpointed as a result, reports Melissa Walker of
The Des Moines Register.

Under the new system, each rural residence will get
an address and there will be no suites or apartment
numbers. "Some streets will be renamed to better
mesh with future growth. The new names and numbers have
already been delivered to residents by mail," writes
Walker. "Both old and new addresses are included
in the postal service's system." (Read
more)

Global warming
worsens from cars, airplanes, coal-fired power plants

"Using electricity from coal-fired power plants,
flying in airplanes and driving cars or trucks all produce
emissions that scientist say are warming the planet,
perhaps dangerously," writes James Bruggers of
the Louisville Courier-Journal as part
of a special
report on global warming.

According to the Carbon Dioxide Information
Analysis Center at Oak Ridge (Tenn.) National
Laboratory, the predominantly rural states Indiana and
Kentucky rank sixth and seventh respectively for per
capita carbon emissions. Anyone who wants to know how
their home and transportation energy contributes to
global warming can make calculations at this
site run by the World Resources Institute.

The C-J also offers tips
for how people can reduce global warming including:
use fuel-efficient vehicles; drive less; join a car
pool, use public transportation or ride a bike; buy
compact fluorescent light bulbs; plant trees; turn lights
off in unoccupied rooms; and explore solar power. Click
here for Bruggers' story.

Bickering
over who provides broadband hurts rural U.S., opines
writer

"With high-speed Internet, people and communities
can improve their lives in innumerable ways. We’ve
seen it in health care, education, economic development…you
name it. And for small rural communities, with limited
access to on-the-ground resources, the stakes are even
higher," opines Thomas D. Rowley, a fellow at the
Rural Policy Research Institute.

"According to the Pew Internet and American
Life Project, just 54 percent of rural residents
have access to broadband. Only 25 percent have broadband
at home. In urban areas, 80 percent have access; 45
percent have it at home. As a result, the United States
ranks 16th in the world in per capita broadband deployment.
We’re also falling behind in access to high-capacity
broadband and cost per unit of bandwidth," writes
Rowley.

"And while we’re on the subject of cost,
it’s important to note that rural Americans don’t
just have less access to broadband; we pay more, too.
Fewer providers mean less competition (sometimes no
competition), which, in turn, means higher prices. According
to the U.S. Small Business Administration, rural customers
pay 33 percent more for cable modem service and 11 percent
more for DSL than do urban customers," continues
Rowley.

"In a February . . . community broadband expert
Jim Baller summed up the battle precisely, '. . . as
we see what we need, we see across the world the leading
nations . . . getting it and moving forward while we
sit here at home in America wasting time quarreling
with the private sector about who should be doing what.
We don’t have the luxury for that quarrel,'"
concludes Rowley. (Read
more)

Cattle thefts
increase in rural America; new investigators join fight

"The era of dusty stagecoaches and wagon trains
is long gone but cattle thieves - the bad guys in a
thousand Westerns - never quite rode off into the sunset.
Rustlers are now a growing menace in some parts of rural
America, striking in the dead of night and sometimes
selling their haul before the rancher or farmer discovers
the animals are gone," writes Sharon Cohen of The
Associated Press.

Rustling may be increasing because of a 25 percent
increase in beef prices in the last five years. Others
speculate the crimes are occurring because methamphetamine
addicts need money quick. Devices such as cell phones
and gooseneck trailers are assisting the thieves in
their getaways, but different states remain undeterred
in their efforts to catch the criminals, reports Cohen.

The Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association
has deployed 29 investigators with full police powers
to combat this problem in Texas and Oklahoma. Working
with state and local officers, the investigators recovered
or accounted for about 5,200 stolen cattle last year,
compared with about 2,400 in 2004. The group also investigates
the theft of horses, saddles and trailers, and it recovered
more than $6.4 million in stolen animals and related
items in 2005, notes Cohen. (Read
more)

Small-time
farmers choose animals over machines; hope to save money

Small numbers of U.S. farmers are turning to animals
for help performing tasks usually done by machines in
an effort save money on gas and protect the environment.

The U.S. Census Bureau ceased tracking how many farms
use animal power after 1960, when the nation's farms
used 4.7 million tractors and 3 million horses and mules.
Tim Huppe, owner of BerryBrook Farm and BerryBrook Ox
Supply in Farmington, N.H., estimated 3,500 oxen teams
exist today in New England. "A lot of small farmers
don't want tractors leaking on their land," Huppe
told M.L. Johnson of The Associated Press.
"If you look at the whole package, you're not buying
any petroleum, and all the waste, the manure, goes back
on the land."

"Large, commercial farms require machines that
can work around the clock without tiring. But unlike
tractors, animals reproduce. They cost a few thousand
dollars or less and can be used for plowing in the spring,
hay rides in the fall and logging in the winter. Machines
depreciate, while animals can be trained and sold at
a profit," writes Johnson. (Read
more)

A hiker's
best friend? Goats replace horses as travel buddies
in Ohio

More and more hikers trudging through trails in central
and southeastern Ohio are opting to bring along pack
goats, and this rural trend is aiming to shed stereotypes
associated with the animal.

"There's not a big call for pack goats in Ohio's
wilderness, but they are popular on the West's rough
terrain," writes Holly Zachariah of The
Columbus Dispatch. "Goats are more surefooted
and loyal than mules, according to Internet sites devoted
to the animal. They can carry a third of their weight
and, if well-conditioned, can pull three times as much."

The goats are becoming so popular among hikers that
earlier this month 30 people and 20 goats showed up
for the first Ohio Regional Pack Goating Rendezvous
at Forked Run State Park in southeastern Ohio. "Goats
get a bad rap as stinky, stubborn animals that climb
your cars and eat your garbage and tin cans," organizer
Wendy Hannum told Zachariah. "But we get them to
be just like a dog." (Read
more)

Small-town newspaper editor Ken Woodley is challenging
his fellow journalists in Virginia to support a national
apology for slavery.

Accepting the 2006 George Mason Award from the Society
of Professional Journalists -- Virginia Pro
Chapter, The Farmville Herald editor called for a push
to have politicians support a congressional resolution
of apology that would be delivered publicly by the president,
reports Kathryn Orth of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
"When he died, there was one thing, and one thing
only, that George Mason was unreconciled to in this
world. . . . Slavery," Woodley after receiving
the award last week.

Journalists must use their power to influence society,
Woodley said. "When we see someone drowning, there
are times when we are uniquely situated, because of
the power of the press behind us and within us, to be
their life preserver,"he said. Woodley played a
key role in establishing Virginia's $2 million Brown
v. Board Scholarship Program, which goes to victims
of school closings in Prince Edward and other areas.
The George Mason Award recognizes journalists who contribute
to civic journalism and freedom of the press, writes
Orth. (Read
more)

Friday,
June 16, 2006

Bush signs
mine-safety law that provides two hours' worth of oxygen

It's now official: President Bush signed a coal-mine
safety law Thursday that takes effect immediately and
incorporates the most substantial changes in the industry
in three decades.

"The new law gives two hours' oxygen supplies
to miners, instead of one; requires the deployment of
underground communications and tracking equipment within
three years; and cracks down on coal companies that
ignore safety," reports James R. Carroll of The
Courier-Journal. Most recently, five miners
were killed in a May 20 explosion at the Kentucky Darby
Mine No. 1 in Holmes Mill, bringing this year's coal-mining
deaths to 33. That total is 11 more than the death toll
for all of 2005.

U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., said, "There is still
a lot of interest in seeing further safety action,"
but he did not list specifics. "Pennsylvania Gov.
Ed Rendell told reporters that federal and state governments
need to require underground rescue chambers in coal
mines," writes Carroll. (Read
more)

Traditional
farm animals make way for horned, heroic beasts in New
York

A New York Times article explores
an emerging trend of traditional farms being replaced
by fantasy-like creations. "A cow is no longer
just a black-and-white mottled animal that moos and
supplies milk, but a large, horned and heroic beast,
imported from the highlands of Scotland, with all kinds
of beefy, antibiotic-free, grass-fed implications,"
writes Woody Hochswender.

"Life on the farm will never be the same, especially
in the exurban areas 50 to 100 miles outside New York
City. The once ubiquitous potato fields and duck farms
of eastern Long Island now sprout luxury homes and strip
malls. Northern Connecticut's stately tobacco barns
now house lawn and garden centers. New Jersey poultry
and truck farming businesses face increasing competition
from corporate farming enterprises to the west,"
reports Hochswender.

"Even as real mud-splattered working farms are
fading out, though, a new kind of animal husbandry is
coming in. Niche, hobby and artisanal farming is on
the rise, often with perfect barns, manor houses and
manicured lawns, places where Tolstoy would be perfectly
at ease with his ledger books and progressive agricultural
ideas. Instead of Herefords and Holsteins, we now have
Belted Galloways and Scottish Highlanders, large, impressive
beasts, carefully fed and bred as much for looks, in
some cases, as for milk or beef. Instead of your regular
old barnyard goat, there are now Nubians and Nigerian
dwarves," continues Hochswender.

"While a fair amount of corn and hay is still
grown in the areas ringing New York City, the focus
is shifting to organic produce, sustainable methods
and exotic breeds. These small farms tend to be both
preservationist in intent and capital-intensive in practice.
They exist not only to preserve land, but to further
a vanishing breed. Even in the best of circumstances,
they often just break even. But the root of this type
of farming is not money, meat or even ribbons at the
agricultural fair. It is love of animals," concludes
Hochswender. (Read
more)

Utah radio
station's 'Horse Talk' aims to answer all equine questions

First, a show named "Car Talk" appeared on
National Public Radio to give automobile
advice. Now, a weekly show named "Horse Talk"
is dishing out equine advice on Park City, Utah's KPCW
(91.9 FM).

Hosted by equine expert Jen Hegeman with help from
veterinarian Charmian Wright, the program fields questions
about bits, saddles and horse wormers. Weekly topics
include horse safety and equipment, Utah's only polo
club and horse myths and folklore. The show is for everyone
from folks new to the scene to horse industry veterans,
writes Brandon Griggs of The Salt Lake Tribune.
(Read
more)

New York
Times to help train Hispanics to enter U.S. newsrooms

The New York Times and the National
Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ)
hope to address the lack of Hispanics in U.S. newsrooms
with an intensive training program next year for Latino
students at Florida International University
(FIU) and the University of Arizona.

"To qualify, students must be NAHJ members, have
completed one semester at a student newspaper or major
newspaper, be in good academic standing and write a
500-word essay about being a journalist. The program
will consist of an institute for Latinos similar to
one created for African-Americans in 2003 at Dillard
University in New Orleans," reports Editor
& Publisher.

Don Hecker, a New York Times copy editor involved in
the project, said The New York Times Journalism Institute
for Student Members of NAHJ, a one-week training session,
will launch at FIU in January with 20 students. The
program will move to Tucson, Ariz., in 2008, notes E&P.
(Read
more)

Residents of Chesterhill, Ohio, are used to Internet
access that moves at the speed of a horse and buggy,
but now the rural village's 304 inhabitants are being
catapulted into the world of high-speed Web travel.

As is the case in many Appalachian communities, the
residents originally hoped the Internet would help them
"overcome decades of isolation perpetuated by hilly
terrain and narrow, winding roads. Only high-speed service
would break through the barriers, it seemed, but it
remains elusive in most of the 29 Ohio counties considered
part of Appalachia," writes Kelly Hassett of The
Columbus Dispatch. Thanks to a $10,000 grant
from the American Distance Education Consortium,
the community 90 miles southeast of Columbus will finally
get that chance.

The high-speed connection is being made possible via
a satellite dish behind Chesterhill's library and receiving
antennas on the village's water tower and buildings.
High-speed access paves the way for online job training
and educational courses in a community where about 20
percent of residents are living in poverty. "The
lack of technology and high-paying jobs has deepened
the chasm between small Appalachian communities and
the larger Ohio cities," reports Hassett. (Read
more)

Kentucky
demonstrators hope to stop paving of mountain trail

Protestors from the citizens' group Kentuckians
for the Commonwealth tried to stop paving on
the Little Shepherd Trail on Pine Mountain Thursday
because they say the work threatens a major tourist
attraction in Cumberland, Ky.

"Paving opponents -- who discovered this week
that the 14-mile dirt and gravel trail was being blacktopped
despite what they thought were assurances from a state
official last year that it likely wouldn't -- said two
Kentucky State Police troopers effectively closed the
trail, preventing them from reaching the announced site
of their protest," according to the Lexington
Herald-Leader in a staff and wire report.

The trail follows Pine Mountain in southeastern Kentucky,
and it traces a fictional path traveled by Chad Buford,
a mountain orphan in John Fox Jr.'s novel, The Little
Shepherd of Kingdom Come. Several miles have already
been paved as part of the $1.6 million project, but
demonstrators hope to save a 7-mile leg between a 19th-century
crossing called Scuttlehole Gap and Creech Overlook.
(Read
more)

Thursday,
June 15, 2006

Nation's
emergency rooms enter crisis stage; rural areas lack
doctors

Emergency medical care in the U.S. is hurting. From
1993 to 2003, the U.S. population grew 12 percent and
emergency room visits jumped 27 percent, but 425 emergency
departments shut down.

Three reports released yesterday by the Institute
of Medicine state that based on two years'
worth of reviews, fixing the nation's ER problem will
require billions of dollars and Congress should create
a new agency to deal with it. "Long waits for treatment
are epidemic, the reports said, with ambulances sometimes
idling for hours to unload patients. Once in the ER,
patients sometimes wait up to two days to be admitted
to a hospital bed," writes David Brown of The
Washington Post.

"Another hazard largely unrecognized by Americans
is that hospitals, especially in rural areas, often
cannot find specialists such as orthopedic surgeons
and neurosurgeons willing to cover the ER. In some cases,
. . . doctors are unwilling to treat high-risk patients
with complicated ailments, many of them uninsured, at
inconvenient times. Sometimes it is simply a function
of shortages. In 2002, there were fewer practicing neurosurgeons
in the United States (about 3,000) than a decade earlier,"
reports Brown. (Read
more)

The societal distance between rural American and the
nation's urban locales is being bridged with the emergence
of farmers markets in both metropolitan cities and sometimes
hard-to-reach locations.

"Nationwide, according to the U.S. Department
of Agriculture, 19,000 farmers sell their products
exclusively at farmers markets," writes Charles
M. Kuperus, New Jersey's secretary of agriculture. "Since
1994, the USDA has published the National Directory
of Farmers Markets. In the first edition, there were
1,755 listed. By 2004, that number had more than doubled
to 3,706. In New Jersey, we have mirrored this trend.
We now have 80 farmers markets, with 28 of them opening
in the past four years alone."

"Not only do farmers markets serve as a social
event, but they can be important arenas for social programs
as well. They are a key participant in the Women, Infants
and Children (WIC) and Senior Farmers Market Nutrition
programs, making fresh, locally grown agricultural products
available to at-risk women, children and senior citizens.
Nationwide, 58 percent of markets take part in such
programs," continues Kuperus.

"In short, farmers markets can and do serve as
a catalyst for urban and suburban areas to reinvent
themselves, while at the same time bringing us as a
nation full circle to the kind of commercial model that
first helped make our cities great. By continuing to
strengthen that connection, farmers markets will play
an important role in the future of both our developed
and rural landscapes," concludes Kuperus. (Read
more)

Seven states
seek to host 'world's cleanest' coal-burning power plant

Seven states are vying for an estimated $1 billion federal
and private energy initiative called FutureGen,
which is being billed as the world’s cleanest
coal-burning power plant and is expected to provide
1,300 construction jobs.

"Financing and tax breaks to win the site selection
. . . are valued from $2.4 million in Kentucky to $164
million in Ohio," reports Eric Kelderman of Stateline.org.
"Other states are sweetening their offers in different
ways. In addition to a $20 million appropriation, Texas
has passed a law to take legal responsibility for the
carbon dioxide that will be captured and pumped underground
to reduce the plant's emissions. Illinois, North Dakota,
West Virginia and Wyoming also are vying for the plant,
projected to start operation in 2012."

Coal production is being touted as one possible solution
to the nation's ongoing energy woes. "The governors
of Montana and Wyoming also are promoting their state's
coal reserves -- in speeches, news reports and talks
with energy companies -- as a new source of fuel for
the country and a new source of revenue for rural communities,"
writes Kelderman. (Read
more)

Appalachian
School of Law gets accreditation, exceeds expectations

Nine years after admitting its first batch of aspiring
lawyers, the Appalachian School of Law
in far Southwest Virginia now has full accreditation
from the American Bar Association.

This status typically improves a school's reputation
and its recruiting ability. "Created by a group
of local lawyers and community leaders without the benefit
of an existing undergraduate school, ASL was envisioned
from the start as a place where aspiring lawyers from
the area could get a law degree and use it to benefit
an economically struggling region," writes Laurence
Hammack of The Roanoke Times.

Of the 71 students enrolled at the school in August
1997, only 47 survived for a second year. That statistic
is a far cry from the most recent academic year's enrollment
of 371 students, which exceeded a projection of 360
students, reports Hammack. (Read
more)

Spokesman-Review
opens editorial meetings to public via webcast

One newspaper is hopping on the chance to use new technology
as a way to welcome the public. The Spokesman-Review
of Spokane, Wa., introduced a webcast feature on Wednesday
that gives readers a window into its twice-daily editorial
meetings.

Editor Steven A. Smith says he aims to engage the readers
in the editorial decision-making process, while not
necessarily letting go of the editorial board's authority.
The two meetings occur at 10 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., and
they involve a critical analysis of the newspaper and
talks about upcoming issues. Wednesday's webcast received
about 50 to 60 viewers, including an entire newsroom
from Utah, reports Sarah Weber of Editor &
Publisher.

"A more obvious direct benefit from the webcast
concerned a local battle with Wal-Mart.
The Spokane community has been in the process of examining
a proposal for a supercenter in the area, and Smith
has admitted that his paper has had troubles locating
representatives from the conglomerate for comments after
regular business hours," writes Weber. When the
issue arose during the webcast, Smith received a call
from a Wal-Mart representative who said the paper would
be contacted within a few hours. (Read
more) Click
here for the webcast.

Looking
for a rural home? Progressive Farmer offers its top
200

Progressive Farmer traveled the country
and just released its second annual list of the top
200 places to live in rural America, with several counties
in the midwest appearing in the top 10.

The top 10 in order from first to last included: Ontario
County, New York; Union County, South Dakota; Oconee
County, Georgia; Grafton County, New Hampshire; Kendall
County, Texas; Grundy County, Illinois; Lancaster County,
Virginia; Boone County, Indiana; Blaine County, Idaho;
and Hood River County, Oregon. Some predominantly rural
states barely showed up, such as Kentucky getting two
nods -- Hardin County (No. 154) and Woodford County
(174).

Aside from travel experiences and cost of living data,
the publication used "a formula that takes into
account crime rates, air quality, access to health care
(the number of medical resources per thousand people),
education (student/teacher ratios and college-bound
percentages) and leisure activities (restaurants, museums,
parks, golf courses, etc.)." Click
here for the complete list.

The Christian Appalachian Project
has been hailed in newspaper, magazine and wire-service
stories for decades. Now, an article in National
Catholic Reporter suggests that it does more
harm than good, and raises other questions about how
poor, rural areas get help -- and can become dependent
on it.

The Christian Appalachian Project, started by Fr. Ralph
Beiting back in 1964, began in response to the poor
living conditions of those in Eastern Kentucky. In the
years that followed, government aid arrived in many
forms. "These government programs probably helped
some people, but ultimately they destroyed the spirit
of the proud mountain residents, who used to disdain
any outside aid," writes Lucy Fuchs, who worked
with Beiting's organization. "Today most observers
will say that the single greatest harm to the Appalachian
people can be said in one word: welfare."

"The word 'welfare' is no longer used, but there
are still many commodities and other forms of assistance
given to the poor, and most people seem to like such
assistance very much. This was perhaps one of the first
things we learned as we got to know the East Kentuckians.
People say, without embarrassment of any kind, that
they 'draw,' meaning they receive government assistance.
Others are appalled that with the new rules there is
a time limit on such assistance. I have even heard some
healthy people say they would like to be on disability
just so that they would not have to work anymore,"
she continues.

After working one year with the Christian Appalachian
Project, Fuchs says she realized the program creates
dependence and poverty for some. "Instead of somebody
like me teaching GED, what Kentucky needs is better
schools. Instead of employment with the Christian Appalachian
Project, Kentuckians need more job opportunities and
improvement in those jobs that are already available.
Kentucky needs more people who are appalled at mountaintop
removal, the successor to strip mining (although much
worse), rather than people who seem to feel they are
helpless to do anything about it," she opines.

Ultimately, Fuchs, a professor emerita of education
from St. Leo University in Florida, admits no easy solution
to Appalachia's struggles exists. She writes, "I
learned in East Kentucky that it is not a simple task
to help the poor. Even using the term 'poor' for these
people is problematic. Who wants to be defined only
by their financial status?" (Read
more)

Southern
Baptists pick dark horse from South Carolina as president

The Southern Baptist Convention elected
Frank Page to a one-year term as its new president yesterday,
following his calls for more cooperation in a church
hit with criticisms from its younger members.

Page beat out two higher-profile candidates, and some
church members hope his victory ends a long period of
"tightly scripted politics and little tolerance
for internal dissent," reports Anita Wadhwani of
The Tennessean. Page called the win
a sign that Southern Baptists believe "we could
do together a lot more and a lot better than what we
can do separately." Page hails from First Baptist
Church in Taylors, S.C.

"Page's election comes in the midst of a contentious
annual gathering of some 12,000 church members and pastors
who are weighing the denomination's direction at a time
when baptism rates are down and contributions for evangelical
work are declining. Page, 53, entered the race at the
urging of a group of pastors, many from a younger generation,
who had turned to Internet blogs to express their discontent
with the current leadership and direction of the convention,"
writes Wadhwani. (Read
more)

"Support of the denomination's Cooperative Program,
which funds international and North American missions
work and seminaries, was a key issue in the race. Page's
church, which average 2,530 in Sunday attendance, last
year gave $534,000, or 12.2 percent of its undesignated
receipts, to the Cooperative Program," writes Ron
Barnett of the Greenville News. "Nationally,
the average has dipped from nearly 10 percent to 6.5
percent, a trend Page said threatens . . . a wide range
of programs." (Read
more)

Oklahoma
murder occurred after victim wrote letter to newspaper

Letters to the editor can sometimes spur action, as
is evident in Hominy, Okla., 40 miles northwest of Tulsa,
where the 2004 “Citizen of the Year” is
charged in the July 2005 shooting death of Rebecca Clements
over a letter she wrote.

Roy Westbrook was evicting Clements’ sister from
rental property he owned. When he spray-painted “Get
out, get out” on the home, Clements wrote to the
weekly Hominy News-Progress. Clements’
letter stated that it seemed “the vandalism in
this town is not only done by misled children but by
some of the most prominent citizens of Hominy.”
"That same day, Westbrook was in court, where a
judge ordered Clements’ sister to vacate the property
in two weeks. Nonetheless, on July 19, in front of a
lunch crowd of over 50 people, Westbrook allegedly walked
into the Hominy Diner where Clements worked as a waitress
and shot her three times. Clements was 11 weeks pregnant
at the time," writes Dave Russell of the Asheville
Citizen-Times.

Westbrook notched the “Citizen of the Year”
honor for work on a community park, and he goes to trial
on Sept. 11, reports Russell. Ramona Brown, general
manager of the News-Progress, said such drama is part
of the paper’s allure. “Everyone wants to
know who got caught doing what,” she said. “We
are a small town and we know everybody.” (Read
more) The Hominy paper could not be located on the
Web.

California
farmers see jump in theft of copper, diesel fuel in
rural county

Farmers in Merced County, Calif., about 30 miles southeast
of Modesto, are falling victim to thefts of copper wire
and diesel fuel, two commodities whose prices have increased
during the last two years.

"Copper and diesel are the biggest issues in ag
crime," said Merced County Sheriff's Department
spokesman Scott Dover. "To be able to go out in
a field and steal 100 gallons of diesel is a lot of
payoff for a little work." Rural ag crimes have
been on the rise the whole time prices have increased
for copper wire and diesel fuel, reports Carol Reiter
of the Merced Sun-Star.

Merced County's rural ag crime task force includes
just two detectives with hundreds of miles of land to
patrol, writes Reiter. Dover admits catching thieves
is tough because ag crimes usually occur at night, in
very rural areas away from houses. (Read
more)

America's alternative newspapers used to rely solely
on local advertisers that could not pay for space in
dailies. Then came the financial troubles hitting major-city
dailies, and big-time advertisers started to view the
weekly alternative publications as a wise investment.

Alt weeklies boast their young readership as a big
selling point for advertisers wishing to reach such
clientele. The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies
reports that 72 percent of the papers' readers are 18-49,
a demographic that newspapers are not attracting, reports
Samantha Melamed of Media Life Magazine.
Many of the small- to mid-size weeklies still rely on
local businesses for ads, and those local accounts even
comprise 80 to 90 percent of the ad revenue for larger
weeklies.

Alternative papers still struggle, though, because
of a free circulation that makes them vulnerable in
the eyes of industry analysts and competitors. "They
contend alt weekly circulation claims are not reliable,
even though most are in fact audited at some level,
either by ABC or Verified Audit,
according to AAN," writes Melamed. (Read
more)

Tuesday,
June 13, 2006

Nation's
meth abuse removes kids from homes, strains welfare
agencies

The methamphetamine epidemic is eating up state welfare
agencies' resources, especially in rural areas, and
social workers are faced with helping addicts find treatment
and getting their children into new homes.

Generations United, a group that promotes
the involvement of grandparents and other family members
in children’s lives, has released a report suggesting
an increase in the number of children removed from their
homes because of meth. The coalition is pushing for
reform in federal welfare laws that are administered
by states, and hopes that Congress will give grandparents
and other family members some of the same resources
foster parents receive to better support children in
meth-affected homes. The Senate Finance Committee set
aside $40 million on Thursday to support local efforts
to help such kids, reports Daniel C. Vock of Stateline.org.

"In Montana, drug use is a factor in 66 percent
of all foster care placements; meth is the drug at issue
in 55 percent of those cases, according to the Montana
Department of Public Health and Human Services.
That means meth is a more common factor than alcohol,
which is involved in 52 percent of cases. (The numbers
add up to more than 100 percent because there is some
overlap)," writes Vock. "In one year, Tennessee
saw instances of children of meth-using parents going
into foster care almost double, jumping from 400 in
2003 to 700 in 2004, according to the report."
(Read
more)

New York's
rural schools report more violence than city schools

School crime data for the 2003-4 and 2004-5 school
years shows New York's city schools are safer than its
rural ones, but schools in New York City might have
underreported violent and disruptive incidents.

The statistics released by the New York State
Education Department come "three weeks
after the state comptroller, Alan Hevesi, issued an
audit that found that safety incidents were being underreported
by schools statewide," writes David M. Herszenhorn
of The New York Times. "The comptroller's
audit blamed individual school districts as well as
the State Education Department."

The numbers released yesterday show disparities between
the city and the rest of the state: New York City, with
more than one million public school children, reported
40.3 violent incidents per 1,000 students; and poor
rural districts reported a rate of 58.8 incidents per
1,000, notes Herszenhorn. (Read
more)

Telecom
to provide fiber for broadband expansion in rural Virginia

XO Communications has signed a $3
million deal to provide dark fiber to the Mid-Atlantic
Broadband Cooperative for the expansion of
advanced broadband services to rural communities in
Virginia.

The unused fiber-optic cable will connect communities
in the central and southern parts of Virginia with broadband
providers. "The network will encourage competition
by allowing telecom providers to offer new broadband
services, and that in turn will help promote economic
growth by creating new jobs and attracting new companies
to the area," writes Neil Adler of the Washington
Business Journal.

The nonprofit cooperative, funded by the Virginia
Tobacco Commission and the U.S. Department
of Commerce's Economic Development Authority,
aims to connect 20 counties and more than 60 business,
industrial and technology parks to broadband Internet
providers, reports Adler. (Read
More)

Rural Oregon
county seeks to make money, limit noise of concerts

Leaders Marion County, Oregon, want to limit the noise
brought on by concerts and other mass gatherings without
hurting the economic gains provided by such events on
public property.

The county's commissioners will consider strengthening
regulations on mass gatherings on Wednesday, which is
an issue that cropped up a year ago. "Two summer
concerts held on a farm near Woodburn last summer drew
a strong response from neighbors who thought that their
farming lifestyle and rural community were being threatened
by the crowds," writes Timothy Alex Akimoff of
the Statesman Journal in Salem.

The county's current ordinance states that events attracting
more than 1,000 are subject to land-use permits. "The
new ordinance, should it pass, defines a mass gathering
as 3,000 people or more in one place at any time, or
more than 500 people per day during a three-day period.
The new ordinance would set a limit of one large gathering
every three months," reports Akimoff. (Read
more)

Local businesses
boost rural economies, stick around, opines writer

A spirit of entrepreneurism can provide an economic
boost to rural communities, and Jack Schultz cites an
example of that idea coming to life in his latest Boomtown USA blog.

Schultz, a consultant to small-town economic developers,
talks about Minnesota entrepreneur Eric Bergeson, who
writes a weekly column for newspapers in his area. One
of Bergeson's most recent columns talked about rural
towns focusing less on recruiting big companies and
instead fostering a growth in hometown entrepreneurs:
"The businesses which have truly transformed a
lucky few declining small towns into bustling, growing,
vigorous communities have been home-grown. Some local
kid decided to stay around home and try out a crazy
idea. . . . People thought he or she was nuts, but the
dreamers just kept chasing their dream, sticking to
it through thick and thin."

Bergeson as cites loyalty as one strong suit of such
entrepreneurs: "Most importantly, the home-grown
entrepreneur sticks around. He is loyal to the town.
He’s not going to demand tax breaks from the local
municipality because he knows that paying taxes is one
of his main functions, a way he can help sustain the
infrastructure which he uses to make a living. The home-grown
entrepreneur isn’t so short sighted as to move
to the first city which offers him a temporary break
on taxes." To read Bergeson's past columns and
daily blog, click
here.

Farmers
own, operate ag-flavored eatery in Washington, D.C.
area

The North Dakota Farmers' Union owns
and operates one of the newest restaurants in the posh
Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. At Agraria, every
dish consumed by the patrons contains ingredients produced
by American family farmers.

Robert Carlson, a wheat and barley farmer, heads the
union and is the driving force for the restaurant. Agraria,
a name suggested by another North Dakota farmer, means
"from the land." "Farmers aren't all
about getting federal money," Carlson told National
Public Radio. "We're also about doing
things to help ourselves... The ultimate way to add
value to your product is to put it before the consumer
in a restaurant."

Carlson said setting up shop in the nation's capital
"really has nothing to do with lobbying,"
adding "it has a lot more to do with the fact that
Washington, D.C., really never has a recession."
The restaurant may end up cropping up at other U.S.
locations, reports NPR. Click
here to read and listen to more.

U.S. publisher
to roll out first portable 'e-newspapers' later this
year

Ever imagined a newspaper that can be read on cheap
digital screens, then rolled up and stuffed into a pocket?
"Some of the world's top newspapers publishers
are planning to introduce a form of electronic newspaper
that will allow users to download entire editions from
the Web on to reflective digital screens said to be
easier on the eyes than light-emitting laptop or cellphone
displays," reports Reuters.

The Hearst Corporation, which operates
12 dailies including the San Francisco Chronicle
and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer,
is planning a large-scale trial of the readers this
year and they could retail between $300 to $400. "Digital
newspapers, so called e-newspapers, take advantage of
two prevailing media trends -- the growth of online
advertising and widespread use of portable devices like
the iPod music player. E-newspapers would cut production
and delivery costs that account for some 75 percent
of newspaper expenses," writes Kenneth Li .

The devices may also help newspapers consume more online
advertising, notes Li. Ad spending on newspaper Web
sites jumped 32 percent last year but only accounted
for 4 percent of total ad spending in newspapers, according
to the Newspaper Association of America.
(Read
more)

Monday,
June 12, 2006

House committee
OKs $115 million cut for public broadcasting

"House Republicans yesterday revived their efforts
to slash funding for public broadcasting, as a key committee
approved a $115 million reduction in the budget for
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
that could force the elimination of some popular PBS
and NPR programs," writes Rick Klein of The
Boston Globe.

The House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees
health and education funding approved the cut to the
corporation that distributes money to the Public
Broadcasting Service and National Public
Radio. The move would slash the corporation's
budget by 23 percent next year, to $380 million. The
cuts could force smaller public-radio stations in rural
areas -- which rely almost entirely on federal money
-- to shut down, said Kevin Klose, NPR's president.
"The impact of today's decision could resonate
in every community in America," he told Klein.
(Read
more)

One PBS spokesperson said such a reduction would force
a digital upgrade to be funded with money currently
being used for other programs. Paula Kerger, PBS's president
and chief executive, issued a statement that said the
cuts would force the network to "drastically reduce
the programming and services public television and public
radio can provide to local communities." Programs
in peril include the literacy television program "Ready
to Learn" and the online teachers' resource "Ready
to Teach," reports Klein.

Southern
Baptist ministers to take complaints from blogs to convention

Southern Baptists will open their two-day annual meeting
tomorrow in Greensboro, N.C., and Russellville, Ky.,
youth minister Art Rogers is just one of many ministers
who plan to voice complaints.

"While he says he supports the denomination's
new conservatism, Rogers said he and other ministers
are using Internet blogs to complain about what they
call a culture of intolerance, infighting and questionable
management practices of the denomination," writes
Peter Smith of The Courier-Journal.
"Whether Rogers and his group will have a lasting
effect on the denomination is unclear." (Read
more)

Disputes about the future of America's largest Protestant
denomination are nothing new. "It is still the
question of who controls the convention and determines
what their direction is," Bill Leonard, dean of
the Divinity School at Wake Forest University
and a frequent critic of the Southern Baptist leadership,
told Tim Whitmire of The Associated Press.
"I think there is serious division over what to
do about the future of the convention itself."

Leonard, the Wake Forest Divinity dean, sees the conservative
SBC leadership significantly damaged by an aging congregations
and a message that does not reach younger worshippers,
who seek either a welcoming approach or a charismatic
experience, writes Whitmire. Southern Baptists "tend
to sound mean in the public square," Leonard said.
"They want to draw the lines and they are amazed
when people say they don't want to join." (Read
more)

Governors
from 18 western states demand reduction in global warming

A group of western governors are concerned about rising
greenhouse gases and want their states to take action
to reduce global warming while still meeting a growing
energy demand.

The Western Governors' Association
unanimously passed a resolution Sunday calling on states
and cities to reduce human-caused greenhouse gases,
without going into specifics. It marked the first time
the group took a formal vote on global warming, and
it comes as several utilities are hoping to build coal-fired
power plants across the West. Court battles are underway
with opponents of the plants arguing that they would
contribute to the carbon dioxide emissions linked to
global warming, report Janet Wilson and Peter Nicholas
of the Los Angeles Times.

The governors also called for "a range of possible
strategies for environmentally sound energy production,
including rebates to customers for efficient appliances,
upgrades to building codes and construction of multibillion-dollar
coal plants that would convert harmful carbon dioxide
emissions to gas rather than spewing them into the air,"
write Wilson and Nicholas. The association includes
Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho,
Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North
Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington
and Wyoming. (Read
more)

Kentucky
broadband initiative holds key to rural areas' futures

Awareness is growing about the power of broadband Internet
access in spearheading economic development, and Kentucky
is a prime example of one rural state seeing such access
as a key to its future.

"An initiative led by ConnectKentucky
is at work to bring broadband coverage and use to the
entire Commonwealth by 2007," writes Mark Schirmer
of Foresight, a publication of the
Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center. "Though
statewide, the campaign operates on a county-by-county
basis, seeking solutions for providing broadband coverage,
raising awareness of the technology, and driving up
demand for its availability. Thought Kentucky ranks
42nd in the nation in terms of home Internet use, ConnectKentucky's
program stands as one of the nation's leading efforts
to cultivate the implementation of broadband technology."

"Bringing broadband to rural areas and small towns,
however, often faces an uphill battle, sometimes quite
literally," adds Schirmer. Telecommunications companies
often balk at the cost of connecting small towns to
their networks out of fear that utilization will be
insufficient to provide a return on their investment.
Mountainous terrain, which dominates Kentucky's eastern
landscape, compounds the expense of connecting communities,
making broadband access even more difficult to obtain."
(Read
more)

Leaders in Pendleton County, Kentucky recently voted
to work with BlueOne out of Lexington
on a six-month test that aims to provide 85 percent
of the county's residents with wireless broadband. To
read a story by Debbie Dennie of the Falmouth
Outlook, click
here.

'Silicon
Holler?' Rural Kentucky university houses landmark projects

A physicist at Morehead State University
in Kentucky claims he is six to nine months away from
completing a "working model" of a device that
could help U.S. soldiers detect roadside bombs in Iraq.

Bob Littlepage is working with the U.S. Department
of Defense on a device that will use optical,
electronic, infrared and chemical sensors to locate
the bombs. Aside from potentially saving lives, this
story's significance is that Littlepage works at a 9,000-student
rural university. Morehead is home to a multimillion-dollar
space science program -- one of only four in the nation
-- and is seeing itself as the driver behind a "Silicon
Holler" -- a reference to the mountains and valleys
in northeastern Kentucky, and California's Silicon Valley,
writes Art Jester of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Morehead will start construction on its $16 million,
45,000-square-foot Ronald G. Eaglin Space Science Center
next year and plans to open the facility featuring a
domed planetarium in 2009. (Read
more)

When Coleman Natural Foods began selling
"natural" beef in 1979 in the high-desert
San Luis Valley about 180 miles southwest of Denver,
shoppers and meat producers viewed the product as unusual.
Now, the beef is creating quite a stir in the meat industry.

"Natural and organic meats have become so popular
that even the big conventional meat producers are getting
into the business, and Coleman is left in the unexpected
position of scrambling for shelf space," writes
Susan Moran of The New York Times.
Since Coleman first started churning out beef in 1979,
the government has developed quality standards for that
beef and organic food — including produce, meat
and the grain fed to cows and other animals.

Organic meat sales grew 55 percent last year to $256
million, and natural meat sales nearly doubled in four
years to $681.3 million in the year ended April 22.
Natural and organic meat producers say continued success
hinges on small ranches and farms, which are often preyed
upon by developers during tough economic times. From
1982 to 2003, nonfederal land devoted to grazing fell
more than 5 percent, from 611 million acres to 576 million
acres, reports Moran. (Read
more) A sidebar helps define "natural."

Pen pal
program brings farming home to Nebraska elementary students

Nebraska students whiz by the state's many farms every
morning and afternoon on buses, but now a pen pal program
is helping them understand the work they see occurring.

Nebraska’s Ag Pen Pals program
connects elementary students with surrounding farms
to help encourage an interest in the state's agriculture
industry and to educate students. The program linked
more than 250 farms and ranches with classrooms last
year, and it allowed students to learn about the entire
farming process, reports Hannah Fletcher of Iowa
Farmer Today.

The only requirement is the classes and farm families
communicate at least three times a year, and the program
has expanded to include rural schools. "It initially
was offered in Nebraska’s four major metropolitan
areas: Omaha, Lincoln, Kearney and Grand Island. Now,
there are 22 cities involved," writes Fletcher.
(Read
more)

Stephens
Media Group buys five newspapers in Central Arkansas

Stephens Media Group is boosting its
presence in Arkansas with the purchase of five newspapers
from Magie Enterprises, a family-owned
company that has churned out news print for 50-plus
years.

Stephens Media Group is based in Las Vegas, where it
publishes its flagship newspaper, the Las Vegas
Review-Journal, and it owns 11 daily newspapers
and more than 30 weeklies across the country. The company
currently owns three dailies in Arkansas - The
Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, the Times
Record of Fort Smith, and the Pine
Bluff Commercial - and 16 other weeklies. (Read
more)

Virginia
congressman weds Galax Gazette editor along bike trail

"The wedding feast was a shared burrito, the cake
coconut and the transportation of the two-wheeled variety
as U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher married his longtime girlfriend
at an outdoor ceremony," reports The Associated
Press.

The 9th District congressman from Virginia wed Amy
Hauslohner on Saturday on a former railroad bridge overlooking
Damascus on the Virginia Creeper Trail. Before the ceremony,
they bicycled from Abingdon, Boucher's hometown, to
Damascus. Boucher's wife will continue as news editor
of the Galax Gazette, but will not
write about or report on her husband or politics. (Read
more)

Thursday,
June 8, 2006

Fort Wayne,
Duluth, Fargo, Aberdeen papers going to family companies

Three family-owned media firms with large rural audiences
are among the buyers of four newspapers, also with big
rural interests, that McClatchy Co. is
buying from Knight Ridder and reselling.

Forum Communications of Fargo, N.D.,
will buy The News Tribune in Duluth,
circulation 46,000, and the Grand Forks Herald,
circ. 31,000. The company owns seven small daily newspapers
in Minnesota and the Dakotas, with circulations of 6,700
to 16,000, and the The Forum of Fargo,
circ. 51,000. It owns about 20 weeklies, mainly in Minnesota,
with some in Wisconsin and one in West Fargo. "The
sale includes a number of smaller businesses affiliated
with the Herald and the News Tribune, including Agweek,
a Herald agribusiness publication, and newspapers in
Superior, Wis., Two Harbors, Minn., and Cloquet, Minn.,"
The Associated Press reported in a
story printed in the Forum. (Read
more)

Schurz Communications of South Bend,
Ind., another family-owned firm, is purchasing the American
News in Aberdeen, S.D. "Schurz publishes
12 daily and six weekly newspapers in medium and small
markets with a combined circulation of nearly 225,000,"
reports Jennifer Saba for Editor & Publisher.
"It also owns four television stations, seven radio
stations, two cable companies, phone directories, shopping
guides, and a printing company." The company's
newspapers include the South Bend Tribune
and small daily newspapers in Danville and Winchester,
Ky., and weeklies in Nicholasville and Stanford, Ky.

In a family way: Ogden Newspapers of
Wheeling, W.Va., will buy The News-Sentinel
in Fort Wayne, Ind., an afternoon daily in
a joint operating agreement with The Journal
Gazette, a morning paper owned by the Inskeep
family. Ogden is family-owned, and "The shared
values will help Ogden Newspapers and The Journal Gazette
Co. work together," The Journal Gazette reported.
(Read
more)

"Ogden Newspapers is purchasing Knight Ridder’s
75 percent stake in Fort Wayne Newspapers as part of
its deal with McClatchy," reports The Journal Gazette's
Jenni Glenn. "The Journal Gazette Co. owns the
remaining 25 percent of Fort Wayne Newspapers under
the joint operating agreement between the two newspapers.
That agreement, which was renewed in 2003, expires in
2050."

Ogden "publishes 39 daily newspapers, as well
as related Web sites, telephone directories, weekly
newspapers, shoppers, and magazines in 15 states,"
E & P reports. Ogden CEO Robert M. Nutting said
in a news release, "We're very pleased to have
been selected by McClatchy to continue the tradition
of the Pulitzer Prize-winning News-Sentinel. As a family
company we're especially pleased to be associated in
the Fort Wayne JOA with another long-standing newspaper
family. The Inskeep family and the Fort Wayne newspapers
are obviously cornerstones of northeast Indiana and
we're proud to become partners in this venture. Here
in the Ohio Valley where my great-grandfather started
his first newspaper we publish one morning and two separate
afternoon papers, so we know and understand the benefits
of the dynamic of a community served by multiple newspaper
voices."

"The Akron Beacon Journal is
going to Sound Publishing Holdings,
a wholly owned subsidiary of Black Press,
a Canadian company which produces over 100 publications
in British Columbia, Alberta, Washington state and Hawaii,"
E & P reports. "McClatchy has found willing
buyers for 11 of the 12 Knight Ridder papers it plans
to divest when it completes the acquisition of Knight
Ridder slated to close at the beginning of July. The
Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., is still
on the auction block. McClatchy expects to announce
a buyer for that paper in the upcoming weeks."
(Read
more)

Tennessee's
oldest town makes sure all residents get weekly newspaper

Tennessee's oldest town, Jonesborough, in the notheast
part of the state, wanted to keep its residents informed,
so its leaders are paying the community's weekly newspaper
to send a copy to every resident.

Tennessee Press Association President
Steve Lake writes in a May newsletter about "the
arrangement Publisher Lynn Richardson of the Herald
and Tribune, Jonesborough, has with her
city: 100 percent saturation as the city pays for all
residents to have a subscription to the paper, all in
return for extensive, full coverage of civic boards,
with the understanding that government employees receive
no special treatment or favors in the paper —
sounds like a dream setup for both parties." (Read
more)

In a phone interview, Richardson told the Institute
for Rural Journalism and Community Issues that
Town Administrator Bob Browning liked the newspaper's
coverage so much that he initiated the conversation.
"He was sometimes frustrated at the methods they
needed to use to get information out to all the people
in Jonesborough about meeting information and what happened
at the meetings," Richardson said. "So he
had been really pleased with our coverage because .
. . what we focus on is the town."

Now reaching about 2,000 households, the Herald and
Tribune does not shy away from printing articles or
letters to the editor that criticize town leaders. "It
was carefully explained that they would have no editorial
control what so ever and they agreed to that,"
Richardson said. "Thus far, there have been no
problems."

U.S. House
to debate issue of telecoms charging businesses for
Internet

U.S. representatives will get the chance today or tomorrow
to debate and vote on "net neutrality" in
the pending telecommunications overhaul bill. At stake
is whether businesses can provide high-speed Internet
without facing charges from telecommunications companies,
so if you care about this issue, now's the time to see
where your U.S.representative stands on it and perhaps
editorialize on the subject.

An amendment to the bill seeks to prevent Bell telecoms
and cable-TV companies from charging businesses to allow
speedier Internet delivery to preferred customers. "Strict
rules that would bar Bell and cable companies from charging
preferred businesses for speedier Internet delivery
are being sought by advocacy groups on both the left
and the right -- along with such leading tech sector
firms as eBay, Google,
Microsoft and Yahoo.
But the Bells and cable firms, joined by free market
groups, call the proposed rules an unwarranted intervention
into the Internet," write Susan Davis and Drew
Clark of National Journal's Insider Update.

"A small family-owned local telephone company
in Yell County plans to roll out Internet television
service in the coming days, beating phone giant AT&T
as the first to offer the service in Arkansas,"
writes Wesley Brown of the Arkansas News Bureau.

Arkwest Communications will provide
digital access to some 200 TV channels and 1,500 hours
of movies on demand for 2,000 of its 6,000-plus residential
customers at the onset. AT&T and Comcast
Corp., which provides cable TV, high-speed
Internet and broadband telephone service in central
Arkansas, are battling over franchise agreements that
would allow AT&T to provide digital telephone service,
reports Brown.

Arkwest is focused on providing rural customers with
telecom offerings that are often found solely in urban
areas, writes Brown. (Read
more)

U.S. House
OKs mine-safety bill with higher fines, more oxygen
supplies

The House of Representatives approved on Wednesday
the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act
of 2006, which would be the industry's biggest safety
overhaul ever and comes on the heels of 33 coal-mining
deaths this year.

"The measure, approved by a 381-to-37 vote, requires
mine operators to provide a second hour's worth of air
for miners along escape routes (they now carry one hour's
worth). They will also have to provide communication
and tracking devices for miners within three years.
The maximum civil penalty for violations of mine-safety
regulations will rise to $220,000, from $60,000,"
writes Ian Urbina of The New York Times.
(Read
more)

The Senate-House measure would give mines as long as
three years to install communications and tracking equipment,
and it does not require inspections of breathing devices
by the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
"It also would require fire-resistant lifelines
that guide miners along escape routes to the surface,"
write James R. Carroll and Wayne Tompkins of The
Courier-Journal. (Read
more)

"In the event of a death or entrapment of a miner,
they must notify federal mining officials within 15
minutes and have two rescue teams available within an
hour," reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
(Read
more)

America's political divide is well documented by the
news media and one scholar is asking very basic questions:
"How is one to make sense of it all? Are there
red states and blue states? A closer look at the election
results by county gives a different picture," opines
liberal political scientist Michael Harrington for Christian
Science Monitor.

Many counties in "blue" states vote "red,"
but those states are dominated by urban counties that
vote "blue," writes Harrringto, who found
that as population density decreases from urban to rural
areas, voters consistency lean Republican. "The
true pattern is blue urban vs. red rural and suburban.
The mean population density for counties voting for
President Bush was 108 inhabitants per square mile in
2000, and 110 in 2004. This compares to 739 for Al Gore
and 836 for John Kerry."

Harrington asks, "Why do rural and suburban areas
vote Republican and urban areas vote Democratic? Certainly
urban singles, with or without children, have different
policy priorities than suburban and rural married couples.
These differences are somewhat reflected in the platforms
of the two parties. The purpose of politics is to reconcile
different preferences and order social priorities."

Suggesting "there's more to this story,"
Harrington proposes that Democrats consider the following,
if they want to win over rural voters: "A simple
regression equation matching county characteristics
against vote outcomes . . . shows two significant variables:
population density and the percentage of married households
vs. female heads of household. For example, of the 100
counties with the lowest proportions of married households,
Mr. Gore won 85 and Mr. Kerry won 90. Of the 100 counties
with the highest proportions of married households,
Bush won 96 in 2000 and 97 in 2004." (Read
more)

Fishing
industries lost amidst sea of residential boom in N.C.,
Maine

North Carolina's coast is booming with residential
development in the form of high-rise condos, which are
towering over fishing villages that are part of the
area's heritage and cultural history.

"Is the economic boom that accompanies new homes
and businesses popping up all over the East Coast worth
the loss of a traditional livelihood, of longstanding
fishing piers, of fish houses and commercial docks?"
asks Hilary Snow of the State Port Pilot,
a weekly in Southport. Many speakers said "no"
at a forum to address the state’s changing waterfronts
Monday in New Bern.

"There is no clear solution, no one-size-fits-all
answer, for protecting the commercial fishing industry
and the traditions of the coast, but Monday state officials
and fishermen explored tax incentives, citizen-based
initiatives and government action, among other issues,
and heard what other states are already doing,"
reports Snow.

Maine is also seeing its coast covered in residential
development. Hugh Copperthwaite, fisheries project coordinator
for Coastal Enterprises in Maine, conducted
a study of 25 coastal towns. He found that as more private
condominiums and neighborhoods built private marinas
and boat slips, "a path to the fishermen’s
livelihood — the water — was getting harder
to find," writes Snow. (Read
more)

Rural county
says no more to sewage from Southern California

Several Southern California cities are scrambling to
find a new place to dump sewage, after rural residents
in Kern County to the north voted Tuesday to end the
spreading of treated human waste on farmland.

Each year, Kern County's fields accept 450,000-plus
tons of treated human waste, and the mixture is spread
on land used to grow cattle feed. Some residents said
the sludge had no pathogens and worked well as fertilizer,
but others worried about it hurting water supplies or
increasing air pollution. So, 82.69 percent of county
voters OK'ed a ban on the sludge, reports Juliana Barbassa
of The Associated Press.

The practice of using treated waste as fertilizer began
in the early 1990s when U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency decided that applying treated sewage
to farmland as fertilizer was better than throwing it
in the sea or landfills. Kern County's inexpensive land
and its location, just across the Tehachapi mountains
from Los Angeles, made it an attractive option, notes
AP. (Read
more) The Rural Blog excerpted a Los Angeles
Times article for an item about this on May
2. Click
here for the archived item.

"In the three years since Americans gained federal
protection for their private medical information, the
Bush administration has received thousands of complaints
alleging violations but has not imposed a single civil
fine and has prosecuted just two criminal cases,"
writes Rob Stein of The Washington Post.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
Act has been a nightmare for many rural news outlets,
partly because their hospitals have been over-cautious
about it. In many cases, community journalists have
been prevented from finding out basic information such
as whether a patient is being cared for at a hospital.

Of the 19,420 grievances filed, the government has
closed 73 percent of the cases -- more than 14,000 --
either ruling that there was no violation, or allowing
those holding the information to fix problems. HIPAA
guaranteed in 2003 that medical information be protected
by a uniform national standard, reports Stein. Thanks
to Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute
for leading us to this story. (Read
more)

An Associated Press story states the
law "is a stopper in a traditional source of information
about the daily stream of accidents, crime and the like:
the local hospital's admitting desk. HIPAA requires
hospitals to ask patients whether they wish to have
information disclosed to the public. If the patient
says no, the hospital can't give out information such
as the traditional short condition descriptions 'good'
or 'serious,' or even say whether the person is in the
hospital, dead and in the morgue." (Read
more)

'Mississippi-owned'
newspaper sent team to Iraq for up-close coverage

When the 155th Brigade of the National Guard traveled
to Iraq from Tupelo, Miss., the Northeast Mississippi
Daily Journal provided its readers with a first-hand
account of the action.

"Committed to covering local news, the 35,000-circulation
paper sent a reporter and photographer over to Iraq
in April 2005 to bring the war home to hundreds of local
families affected by the deployment," writes Jeremy
Weber in the Inlander, the weekly tabloid
of the Inland Press Association. "During
its daily Iraq coverage, the paper devoted its front-page
centerpiece or a full inside page to the stories and
photos from Iraq. The Daily Journal covered local troops
teaching agricultural techniques to Iraqi farmers, delivering
supplies to schools, and other aspects of daily life."

The Daily Journal calls itself the largest “Mississippi-owned”
newspaper, and editor Lloyd Gray's mission is "building
the community." He said the Iraq coverage "touched
a chord like nothing I’ve ever seen in my 35-plus
years in the newspaper business." Click
here for the paper's Journal of War. The paper recouped
much of the expense of sending photographer Thomas Wells
and reporter Jennifer Farish (right)
to Iraq with a 48-page special section, reports Weber.
(Read
more)

A Massachusetts company wants to provide school districts
with money in exchange for radio advertisements and
a variety of commercial programs on buses.

"BusRadio, of Needham, Mass.,
said it aims to begin broadcasting to more than 100,000
Massachusetts students in September and to expand nationwide
in 2007. The closely held company, which offers school
districts a percentage of ad revenue, has signed contracts
with districts in Massachusetts, California and Illinois,
said Michael Yanoff, chief executive officer. Several
districts said they will receive 5 percent of the revenue
generated by the free broadcast service," writes
Robert Tomsho of The Wall Street Journal.
The company says the service is designed to reduce misbehavior
by giving students something to listen to.

School-bus radio is the latest example of advertising
aimed at public-school students, which first started
in 1990 with Channel One giving schools
free televisions and cable access in exchange for broadcasting
its programs and advertising. In an age of low budgets,
schools are turning to textbook advertising and selling
rights to the names of facilities for additional revenue,
reports Tomsho.

Commercial Alert, a consumer-advocacy
group in Portland, Ore., opposes such advertising and
wants Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to bar BusRadio
from the state's school buses, writes Tomsho. Howard
Schaffer, a spokesman for the Public Education
Network, a Berkeley, Calif., association of
foundations that raise money for public schools, said
budget woes are "making it easier for corporate
people to go into schools and offer them things that
would have previously been verboten or cast aside."
(Read
more)

Rural post
offices close in Europe, routes shut down in Canada;
U.S. next?

Rural post offices are closing in Ireland and the United
Kingdom, on top of the elimination of several routes
in Canada. Despite several stories on those closings,
it remains unclear whether such will occur in the U.S.

All of the reports from other countries during the
past few months makes us suspicious, as does the unwillingness
or inability of the National Rural Letter Carriers
Association to talk to us. We were told the
association's officers will be unavailable for comment
until at least next month. However, a U.S. Postal
Service spokesman said he knew of no plans
to cut back on rural service.

To read about at least one rural post office closing
every fortnight this year in Ireland, click
here for a story from Unison.ie,
Ireland's largest on-line content resource.

Mont., Tenn.
list meth makers on registries; more states may follow

"Like sex offenders and tax dodgers, methamphetamine
makers are now being listed on Internet registries in
several states," writes Elizabeth Wilkerson for
Stateline.org.

Tennessee brought the nation’s first such registry
online in 2005, and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed
a law June 4 creating one. Georgia, Oklahoma, Washington
and West Virginia have registry bills pending, and an
Oregon bill would require the state to alert residents
-- whether through an Internet registry or other means
-- when a convicted meth maker is released from prison
into their area. Montana includes meth makers in its
sexual and violent offender registry but does not list
them separately, reports Wilkerson.

The registries mark a new tool for combating meth,
and nearly all states limit sales of cold tablets containing
pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in producing the drug.
Lawmakers and law enforcers said the meth-maker registries
differ from sex-offender registries, because sex offenders
are required to register in person and re-register regularly,
notes Wilkerson. (Read
more)

California
valley votes to keep rural lifestyle by limiting homes

Hikers and equestrians defeated developers by voting
Tuesday to preserve their rural lifestyle in the High
Desert city of Apple Valley, located 40 miles northeast
of Los Angeles.

The valley's residents voted to pass Measure N, which
prevents the Town Council "from adopting a new
General Plan that would have allowed more than two homes
per acre," according to a staff report in the San
Bernardino Sun. The newspaper's report
did not provide vote totals.

Measure N reaffirms the intent of a 1999 initiative
to limit the number of single-family homes to two per
acre, and it prevents the Town Council from doing differently
until at least 2020, wrote Chuck Mueller of the Sun
in a prior story. Apple Valley contains 15,000-plus
acres of vacant land zoned for a single-dwelling unit
on 2.5 or 5 acres. (Read
more)

'C.A.V.E.
people' use negativity to thwart improvement, opines
paper

Communities aimed at improvement must be aware of C.A.V.E.
people, or “Citizens Against Virtually Everything,"
opines the Daily & Sunday Jeffersonian
of Cambridge, Ohio in an editorial inspired by a recent
presentation by Jack Schultz, a consultant to small-town
economic developers.

Such people are likened to a "toxic infestation"
that can destroy a community. The editorial writes that
some characteristics of C.A.V.E. people include: attending
no public meetings and criticizing the way “they”
do things; complaining about the quality of police,
sheriff’s deputies, state troopers, firefighters
and EMTs; knocking down the local town council and county
commission; saying that local newspaper and radio stations
are no good and have less local news than out-of-town
media.

The editorial is only available to paid subscribers
at the paper's Web
site, but more if not all of it can be read for
free on Schultz' Boomtown
USA blog.

Nominations
sought for Gish Award for courage, tenacity, integrity

Do
you know a publisher, editor, reporter or photographer
who has demonstrated courage, tenacity and integrity
in rural journalism? You are invited to nominate one
or more of them for the Tom and Pat Gish Award, presented
by the Institute for Rural Journalism &
Community Issues.

The
award is named for the couple (right) who
are in their 50th year of publishing The Mountain
Eagle of Whitesburg, Ky. The Gishes have withstood
advertiser boycotts, declining population, personal
attacks and even the burning of their newspaper office
to provide the citizens of Letcher County the kind of
journalism often lacking in rural areas, especially
those dominated by extractive industries -- in this
case, primarily coal. Their coverage and commentary
go beyond the boundaries of Letcher County to address
issues in state and federal governments and other institutions
that have a local impact, such as a new regional drug-fighting
agency, the 40-year-old Appalachian Regional
Commission, and the Tennessee Valley
Authority and its coal-buying policies that
encouraged strip mining in Central Appalachia. These
are just some examples of the type of journalism worthy
of the award.

The
Gish Award is given to rural journalists who demonstrate
the courage, tenacity and integrity often needed to
render public service through journalism in rural areas.
The first award was made to the Gishes themselves in
2005. The Institute hopes to make it annually, depending
on the quality of the nominations.

Nominations
for this year's award are due Sept. 1. The Institute
plans to present the award at one of its conferences
this fall. Nominations should be made by way of a letter
or e-mail giving details on the courage, tenacity and
integrity demonstrated by the nominee(s). You may be
asked for more information.

Send
your nomination to: Al Cross, director, Institute for
Rural Journalism and Community Issues, 122 Grehan Journalism
Bldg., University of Kentucky, Lexington KY 40506-0042,
or by e-mail to al.cross@uky.edu.
If you have questions, e-mail us or call 859-257-3744.

Among the
250 counties with lowest income levels in U.S., 225
are rural

An analysis of the latest county income levels in the
United States reveals that low incomes are prevalent
in rural America, with several Texas counties among
the very poorest.

In the 2004 data provided by the U.S. Department
of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis, 225
non-metropolitan counties crop up in the list of the
250 lowest in the nation. "Over 100 of the lowest
250 counties are located in four states – Kentucky
(35), Texas (30), Mississippi (20), and Georgia (19).
Only 12 are metropolitan counties – five in Georgia,
three in Texas, and two each in Kentucky (Edmonson and
Trimble) and Mississippi (Perry and Tunica). In all,
33 states have at least one county included in the 250
lowest income counties," notes the Center
for Rural Affairs. (Read
more)

Schools making little progress under the federal No
Child Left Behind Act are required to hire outside tutors,
but many poor, rural districts are having trouble doing
so because such firms shy away from working in locations
where money opportunities are slim.

"With such scanty options, some schools have turned
to grass-roots tutoring companies that have sprung up
with little track record, such as a small Arkansas firm
started by a former basketball player. Some are trying
online tutors. But many . . . are doing nothing at all,"
writes Amy Goldstein of The Washington Post.
Such rural schools comprise about one-third of the nation's
public schools.

This problem illustrates a conflict between a law aimed
at helping failing schools and private companies that
do not always cater to needy students. The whole idea
of private tutoring become part of the act when Congress
went against the Bush administration's voucher plan
that would have allowed parents to send their children
to private schools at the public's expense, reports
Goldstein.

Administration officials seem at a loss for ways to
help rural districts, writes Goldstein. Stacy Kreppel,
a senior policy adviser with the U.S. Department
of Education, said, "There's not a lot
they can do if a provider turns around and says, 'No,
we are not going to serve.' . . . We may need to examine
. . . where the gaps are and if there are additional
strategies we can take." (Read
more)

Immigration
program provides rural hospitals with staffing boost

More than 100 foreign-born physicians, from countries
like Egypt, Pakistan and Croatia, have worked in Kansas
communities under the J-1 visa waiver program, which
allows international medical graduates to stay in the
U.S. as long as they spend three years in medically
underserved rural or urban communities.

"But the program is a temporary one that has been
reauthorized every few years -- most recently in 2004
-- and officially expired last week. Now, some lawmakers
want to make the program permanent, arguing that it
is critical for quality health care in rural areas where
few American doctors want to practice," reports
Sam Hananel of The Associated Press.

Legislation to reauthorize the program permanently
is being considered in the U.S. House and Senate. "The
program is crucial in small farming towns . . . where
it has become nearly impossible to recruit American
doctors," writes Hananel. "While a quarter
of the nation's population lives in rural areas, only
10 percent of physicians practice there." More
than 1,000 waivers have been requested in each of the
past three years in the U.S. (Read
more)

Meat-processing
plants getting more rural, and workers more Hispanic

Meat processors are using lower-skilled labor, more
of it Hispanic, and gradually moving their operations
to rural areas, reports William Kandel in a feature
story in the latest edition of Amber Waves,
the online magazine of the Economic Research
Service of the U.S. Agriculture Department.

"Between 1980 and 2000, the Hispanic share of
meat-processing workers increased from under 10 percent
to almost 30 percent, while the Hispanic workforce itself
became mostly foreign born," Kandel writes. "While
the rapid population growth and geographic dispersion
of Hispanics since the 1990s has helped meet the labor
needs of rural-based meat-processing plants, Hispanic
settlement has also had social and economic implications
for rural communities."

Factors driving plants to rural areas include lower
stock hauling and feed costs, opposition to unions in
rural areas, and incentives offered by rural communities
and state and federal governments -- such as a federal
enterprise zone that lured a 1,500-worker Cagle's-Keystone
plant to rural Clinton County, Ky., population
less than 10,000. Much if not most of the Southern Kentucky
plant's workforce is Hispanic.

The
four leading poultry-producing states in 1993 were Arkansas,
Georgia, Alabama, and North Carolina, all with large
proportions of rural residents. However, such relocations
often lead to worker shortages because of the lack of
conveniently located housing, limited public and retail
services, and long commutes, reports Kandel. (Read
more)

Many plants are finding solutions to such shortages,
thanks to the country's growing Hispanic presence. Between
1980 and 2000, the share of non-Hispanic Whites in the
meat-processing workforce slid from 74 to 49 percent,
while the share of Hispanics rose from 9 to 29 percent.
Kandel sees this as one way Hispanics help stimulate
rural economies and he writes, "Although a small
share (10 percent) of all U.S. Hispanics live in nonmetro
counties, the rapid growth of the U.S. Hispanic population
— exceeding 100 percent in about half of all states
over the past decade — has significant implications
for rural communities."

Immigrants'
stories spark connection with man in Kentucky's coal
country

"A lot of people, when they think about immigrants,
think about them 'coming in.' They don’t think
about what it's like for them to leave their homes in
the first place. I do, because one day, I might have
to leave my home in the mountains," Machlyn Blair,
of Jeremiah, Ky., wrote in an essay for National
Public Radio's "All Things Considered."

"For generations, people in my family have moved
from state to state for jobs, and put their lives at
risk in the coal mines. Here, leaving the mountains
is a rite of passage, just like crossing the border
might be for others. I hear kids every day making plans
about their future, and Eastern Kentucky isn’t
a part of that. I never thought I'd have anything in
common with teenagers from other countries like Mexico,
but I do. Seeing the immigration debates and demonstrations
on TV, I understand that big companies look at our families
as dollar signs, as people who can pack coal out or
bring the tomato harvest in," continues Blair.

"Knowing where I’m from is one of the most
important things to me. I don’t want to give that
up for a paycheck. And I’m afraid if I go, I’ll
never be able to come back," concludes Blair. His
essay was produced by the Appalachian Media
Institute and Youth Radio.
Click
here for more of his essay.

Community-supported
agriculture offers fresh food in Auburn, Ala.

In "community supported agriculture," customers
to pay a fee up front for food fresh out of the ground
every week for a year, providing advance financial support
to local growers.

"The concept behind CSA is local consumers share
the costs and risks with the farmer. There are many
different crops to choose from, so you might get something
different every time," writes Brock Parker of WTVM
Channel 9 in Columbus, Ga., where the annual
fee is $500.

Customers know vegetable supplies might run low due
to diseases or droughts, but they overlook such risks
because of the money saved and the quality of the food,
notes Parker. There are even waiting lists for people
wishing to participate because CSAs are structured for
small groups of customers. For more information, e-mail
Randle Farms at randlefarms@mindspring.com.
(Read
more)

Citizen
activists help shape positive environment for Iowa town

A group of 10 young people from Spencer, Iowa (pop.
11,317) formed Positively Spencer a
couple of years ago, and since then they have strived
to create a positive environment for the town's residents,
notes Jack Schultz in his Boomtown
USA blog.

“We don’t have any elected positions within
the community. We don’t even have a bank account,
but we are a group of people who care deeply about the
town. We’re not doing Positively Spencer to benefit
the town for 2006 or 2007. We’re hoping that what
we are doing is affecting Spencer in 2015 and 2025 and
2030.” Kevin Robinson, a local banker, who is
one of the original 10 told Schultz.

The group identified people in the 22- to 40-year age
bracket who moved to Spencer for jobs and chose to stay
to raise a family. In turn, Positively Spencer tries
to ensure a high qualify of life for those residents,
because they see it as a key to economic development.
"It is a model that other towns could and should
copy," concludes Schultz, a consultant to small-town
economic developers.

North Carolina
sees drop in meth-lab raids, credits cold-medicine law

North Carolina authorities raided the fewest number
of methamphetamine labs in May since December 2003,
and officials credit a new state law restricting the
sales of cold medicines used to make the drug.

North Carolina Bureau of Investigation
agents busted 11 meth labs in May, a 69 percent drop
from 35 labs in May 2005, reports The Associated
Press. Since the new law went into effect Jan.
15, state officials reported 112 labs have been busted.
They found 172 labs in the like period last year. (Read
more)

Colorado
couple's marriage delayed after they engage in hotel
fight

"Ali Aghili, 37, and Marney Hurst, 33, both of
Boulder [Colo.], were to be married Saturday night at
the posh Little Nell Hotel [in Aspen]. Instead, they
got into a fight the night before and police arrested
them because both allegedly threw punches," reports
The Associated Press, picking up an
initial report in the Aspen Daily News.

The couple's $250 bond conditions required they be
separated, nixing their plans. "The investigation
began after police received a 911 call reporting one
woman yelling at another. Police determined Hurst had
been shouting at Aghili's sister," reports AP.

This report might embarrass the couple, but the Aspen
Daily News does go by the motto "If you don't want
it printed, don't let it happen." (Read
more)

Nominations
sought for Gish Award for courage, tenacity, integrity

Do
you know a publisher, editor, reporter or photographer
who has demonstrated courage, tenacity and integrity
in rural journalism? You are invited to nominate one
or more of them for the Tom and Pat Gish Award, presented
by the Institute for Rural Journalism &
Community Issues.

The
award is named for the couple (right) who
are in their 50th year of publishing The Mountain
Eagle of Whitesburg, Ky. The Gishes have withstood
advertiser boycotts, declining population, personal
attacks and even the burning of their newspaper office
to provide the citizens of Letcher County the kind of
journalism often lacking in rural areas, especially
those dominated by extractive industries -- in this
case, primarily coal. Their coverage and commentary
go beyond the boundaries of Letcher County to address
issues in state and federal governments and other institutions
that have a local impact, such as a new regional drug-fighting
agency, the 40-year-old Appalachian Regional
Commission, and the Tennessee Valley
Authority and its coal-buying policies that
encouraged strip mining in Central Appalachia. These
are just some examples of the type of journalism worthy
of the award.

The
Gish Award is given to rural journalists who demonstrate
the courage, tenacity and integrity often needed to
render public service through journalism in rural areas.
The first award was made to the Gishes themselves in
2005. The Institute hopes to make it annually, depending
on the quality of the nominations.

Nominations
for this year's award are due Sept. 1. The Institute
plans to present the award at one of its conferences
this fall. Nominations should be made by way of a letter
or e-mail giving details on the courage, tenacity and
integrity demonstrated by the nominee(s). You may be
asked for more information.

Send
your nomination to: Al Cross, director, Institute for
Rural Journalism and Community Issues, 122 Grehan Journalism
Bldg., University of Kentucky, Lexington KY 40506-0042,
or by e-mail to al.cross@uky.edu.
If you have questions, e-mail us or call 859-257-3744.

SPJ
raises awareness of community colleges as possible routes
to papers

Society of Professional Journalists
Region 10, which covers Alaska, Washington, Oregon,
Idaho and Montana, is starting a push to make community
college journalism graduates potential entry-level employees
of Washington's weekly newspapers.

"Working with the Washington Journalism
Education Association (WJEA), SPJ will encourage
high school students from low- and moderate-income families
to consider one of the lower-cost community colleges
with strong journalism programs, rather than a more
expensive four-year college," Oren Campbell, the
region's education liaison and former regional director,
writes in an e-mail.

"The rationale: Most Washington weeklies and some
smaller dailies offer entry-level salaries of around
$20,000 -- only two-thirds of what the average four-year
college communications graduate receives. A community
college education costs considerably less than at a
four-year college, and student-loan debt is more manageable,"
Campbell writes. To e-mail him, click
here.

"Supporters of press freedom are growing more
vocal in Pakistan, where a Rural Media Network
Web site has launched to defend freedom of expression
and support journalists in the country’s rural
areas," reports the Editors Weblog of the World
Editors Forum. (Read
more)

The site, http://online-rmnp.tripod.com,
says the network was organized to to monitor and defend
freedom of expression in rural Pakistan, provide support
for rural newspapers, provide a forum for debate, and
help build the professional capacity of rural journalists
and other sections of civil society "to better
equip them in political mediation." The network
publishes Sadiq
News, a newsletter covering various issues
for rural journalists, including freedom of expression,
press-freedom violations, ethics and training.

"The network launched the site with a small ceremony
on May 28 in the newsroom of the Nawa-I-Ahmedpur Sharqia
newspaper, in Ahmedpur East," reports the International
Journalists' Network. "Ehsan Ahmed Sehar,
head of the network and chief editor of the newspaper,
built the site with help from Pieter Wessels, chairman
of the Commonwealth Journalists Association's
Australian branch."

The emir of Bahawalpur, Nawab Salahuddin Abbasi, said
at the ceremony that the Internet is, as IJNet reported,
"helping to bring freedom of expression within
reach of people in the rural areas of developing countries."
For more information, contact Sehar at ehsanshr@hotmail.com
or ehsan.sehar@gmail.com,
or telephone +92-62-2273092.

Monday,
June 5, 2006

How religious
is your state? New data from Gallup Poll can tell you

The Gallup Poll has assembled a state-by-state
account of worship attendance that could provide useful
comparisons for journalists writing stories about the
religious angle of social and political issues.

The data, based on more than 68,000 interviews in the
last two years, shows that 58 percent of adults in Alabama,
Louisiana and South Carolina said they attend church
or synagogue weekly or almost weekly. Mississippi was
right behind at 57 percent. Utah and Arkansas are tied
for fifth at 55 percent, Nebraska and North Carolina
are tied for seventh at 52 percent, and Tennessee and
Georgia round out the top 10 at 52 percent. The second
10 are Oklahoma, Texas, Kentucky, Kansas, West Virginia,
Indiana, Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota and Virginia and
Minnesota, tied for 20th.

"Church attendance is much higher in the South"
than other regions, the poll said in a news release.
Of the states traditionally defined as Southern, "Virginia
has the lowest reported church attendance rate (44 percent)
which is still above the national average (42 percent)."
Reported worship attendance is lowest in New England.

Another way to look at the data is to subtract those
who say they seldom or never attend worship from those
who say they attend weekly or almost every week. That
gives a "net attendance" figure, in which
Louisiana and Mississippi lead with +33, followed by
Alabama at +31 and South Carolina at +30. Those are
also the top four states in regular attendance, so it
may be fair to say that they are the four most religious
states. (The middle category for attendance in the polling
was once a month.)

The figures show rural residents led in church attendance.
At the request of the Institute for Rural Journalism
and Community Issues, the Gallup folks broke
down the data for Kentucky and adjoining states into
urban, suburban and rural respondents. In six of the
eight states, church attendance was highest among rural
residents. Suburbanites led in Ohio; in Tennessee, urbanites
led, but rural residents led among those who said they
worship weekly. In the net-attendance calculation, rural
residents in Tennessee and Illinois were the most religious
among the eight states.

Same-sex marriage, which appeared to be a big issue
in rural areas in 2004, is back on the national agenda
this week with a Senate vote scheduled on a constitutional
amendment. There appears to be no chance that the amendment
can get the two-thirds votes in the Senate and House
to send the amendment to the states for ratification,
so critics say Republicans are merely trying to boost
their chances in the fall elections.

Newsweek reports this week, "Last
month James Dobson, the influential founder of Focus
on the Family, met privately with key Republicans,
including Frist, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority
Leader John Boehner, to warn them about the political
consequences of failing to promote issues like marriage.
'If you forget us, we'll forget you,' he said, according
to a GOP House leadership aide who was briefed on the
gatherings, but declined to be identified discussing
private meetings."

Debra Rosenberg's story also says, "While the
GOP leadership clearly hopes this tack can revive their
sputtering election prospects this fall, some GOP strategists
aren't so sure. Pew polls show a 10-point jump in support
for gay marriage since 2004. And Bush pollster Matthew
Dowd doubts it was decisive last time around. 'It didn't
drive turnout in 2004,' he says. 'That is urban legend.'
Turnout was the same in states with bans on the ballot
and those without, Dowd says."

Rosenberg quotes Richard Land, president of the Ethics
and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern
Baptist Convention, as saying of same-sex marriage,
"It's the one issue I have seen that eclipses even
the abortion issue among Southern Baptists." (Read
more)

Nominations
sought for Gish Award for courage, tenacity, integrity

Do
you know a publisher, editor, reporter or photographer
who has demonstrated courage, tenacity and integrity
in rural journalism? You are invited to nominate one
or more of them for the Tom and Pat Gish Award, presented
by the Institute for Rural Journalism &
Community Issues.

The
award is named for the couple (right) who
are in their 50th year of publishing The Mountain
Eagle of Whitesburg, Ky. The Gishes have withstood
advertiser boycotts, declining population, personal
attacks and even the burning of their newspaper office
to provide the citizens of Letcher County the kind of
journalism often lacking in rural areas, especially
those dominated by extractive industries -- in this
case, primarily coal. Their coverage and commentary
go beyond the boundaries of Letcher County to address
issues in state and federal governments and other institutions
that have a local impact, such as a new regional drug-fighting
agency, the 40-year-old Appalachian Regional
Commission, and the Tennessee Valley
Authority and its coal-buying policies that
encouraged strip mining in Central Appalachia. These
are just some examples of the type of journalism worthy
of the award.

The
Gish Award is given to rural journalists who demonstrate
the courage, tenacity and integrity often needed to
render public service through journalism in rural areas.
The first award was made to the Gishes themselves in
2005. The Institute hopes to make it annually, depending
on the quality of the nominations.

Nominations
for this year's award are due Sept. 1. The Institute
plans to present the award at one of its conferences
this fall. Nominations should be made by way of a letter
or e-mail giving details on the courage, tenacity and
integrity demonstrated by the nominee(s). You may be
asked for more information.

Send
your nomination to: Al Cross, director, Institute for
Rural Journalism and Community Issues, 122 Grehan Journalism
Bldg., University of Kentucky, Lexington KY 40506-0042,
or by e-mail to al.cross@uky.edu.
If you have questions, e-mail us or call 859-257-3744.

Low pay for police officers is a chronic problem in
rural America, and here is an example from Roane County,
Tenn., where private security firms are luring away
would-be officers.

"At several different police and sheriff's departments
there are manhunts going on every day. They're not looking
for criminals, but new officers," reports Eric
Waddell of WVLT Channel 8 in Knoxville.
Potential officers often struggle with where to apply
because of pay discrepancies, and private security companies
offer overtime pay that can make salaries 3 to 4 times
what city and county departments might provide.

Also, as many officers get experience and training,
they tend to move to more profitable places. "Officers
tell us one problem that hurts both the Anderson and
Roane County Sheriff's Departments is a pay system that
does little to reward seniority," reports Waddell.
"Here's a common complaint, deputies with 15 or
20 years of experience make very little more than deputies
fresh out of the academy." (Read
more)

Bio-Town,
USA: Can Reynolds, Ind., pave way to energy self-sufficiency?

Reynolds,
Ind., above, "wants to secede from America's energy
grid and power itself entirely with renewable sources,
like its corn and pigs," writes Monica Davey of
The New York Times.

"This
corn and soybean and hog farming town, which pops up
out of nowhere at a crossroads and disappears as fast,
has only 533 residents left. As in many withering rural
communities, worries here lean toward keeping the school
open, persuading sons and daughters to stay and finding
a role for small farms in a changed economy. But a different
worry has risen here, too. With government financing
and help from state agriculture officials, Reynolds
is wrestling with the nation's dependence on ordinary
energy supplies and starting a one-town rebellion. Some
say the goal may be too ambitious, too fantastic, for
any place, much less little Reynolds."

The idea started last year with Gov. Mitch Daniels
and his administration, which picked Reynolds to be
"Bio-Town" because it was not too far from
major roads or Purdue University, the
heart of agricultural and engineering research in Indiana.
"As the price of gasoline soared, Reynolds adopted
the notion as its own, and residents began speaking
passionately of an end to their reliance on foreign
oil and of the potential electricity they could envision
in the more than 150,000 pigs that wander nearby,"
Davey writes.

"Since November, nearly 100 of the community's
residents have begun driving cars that can run on ethanol-based
fuel, as has the employee who drives one of the town's
three vehicles. The other two town cars have been replaced
with diesel vehicles, so they can run on bio-diesel
fuel like vegetable oil. And this month, officials here
began work on a plant that would allow Reynolds to draw
its electricity from pig and cow manure, as well as
human waste. After that, they say they want to make
their own renewable natural gas with the methane from
the waste of those same pigs, cows and people."

That
depends on attracting more than $7 million in private
investment, Daniels acknowledged in an interview with
Davey, who reports, "There are those here who wonder
if BioTown will ever be more than a political press
release." (Read
more)

Another Kentucky high-school graduation featured a
voluntary, group recitation of the Lord's Prayer in
protest of a student's legal objections to officially
led or officially sponsored prayer.

"At the beginning, some of the students stood
and quietly prayed the Lord's Prayer, while others who
opposed school prayer stood and waved American flags
to show their support of the Constitution," reported
Peter Smith, religion writer for The Courier-Journal
of Louisville.

The student speakers reflected the differing viewpoints.
"Valedictorian Jacqueline Ward said that while
Shelby County is still largely white, middle class and
Christian, it has diversity -- and that students will
encounter more diversity as they enter the world,"
Smith reported. Ward said, "Though we may not agree
with them, we must fully respect them and their views."
Salutatorian Justina Ellis received loud applause when
she said being diagnosed with diabetes "brought
me closer to my Lord," and quoted Scripture, "I
can do anything through Him who strengthens me."

School
officials dropped the usual benediction from the ceremony
because of objections from graduating senior Arshiya
Saiyed, an American-born Muslim, and the American
Civil Liberties Union. "When Saiyed walked
up to receive her diploma (at right),
there were some cheers and one or two boos from the
guest area, but not from fellow graduates," Smith
wrote.

A lawsuit by the ACLU on behalf of a student at Russell
County High School last month prompted a federal judge
to prohibit official prayer at the school's commencement.
"Students rose on their own during the ceremony
and recited the Lord's Prayer. And Megan Chapman, the
student who had been designated to lead the prayer,
included religious messages in her remarks to graduates,"
Smith wrote. (Read
more)

The school's principal said he made admission to the
ceremony ticket-only partially because of the prayer
issue, but mainly to ensure that each student's family
members could get into the Frankfort Convention Center,
which has a capacity of about 5,000, the Sentinel-News
of Shelbyville reported. (Read
more)

Newspapers'
online advertising revenue jumps by 35 percent

American newspapers' revenue from online advertising
grew to $613 million in the first quarter of 2006, according
to the Newspaper Association of America.
That was a 35 percent increase from the first quarter
of 2005 and the eighth consecutive quarter newspapers'
online ad revenue has grown. The growth accounted for
most of the industry's 1.8 percent ad-revenue increase,
The Associated Press said.

"Last year, online ad revenue totaled $2.027,
marking a growth of 31.48 percent from 2004," reports
Erik Sass of Online Media Daily. "Expenditures
on print ads, by contrast, remained flat in the first
quarter. Print ad revenues came to $10.5 billion, up
0.3 percent from the same time last year. Overall, print
and online ad revenues combined totaled $11.1 billion
... an anemic year-over-year growth of 1.8 percent."

NAA does not categorize online ad spending, "but
other analysts, including Merrill Lynch and Borrell
Associates, have said that classified ads make up the
bulk of newspapers' online ad revenues," Sass reports.
"Print classifieds in the real estate category
grew to $1.1 billion--26.3 percent more than last year.
Recruitment ads also grew to $1.1 billion, marking a
2.3 percent increase. Auto ads, however, fell to $940
million -- a drop of 14.5 percent." (Read
more)

Friday,
June 2, 2006

FCC may
increase subsidies for rural phone and Internet access

A Federal Communications Commission
proposal would increase how much companies subsidize
telephone service in poor and rural areas.

The proposal aims to ensure that enough money is raised
to finance the federal Universal Service Fund, which
is projected to pay out $7.3 billion this year. "The
money goes to subsidize phone service in high-cost areas
of the country, to make phone service affordable for
more than 7 million low-income consumers, to offer reduced
telecommunications and Internet rates to rural health-care
providers, and to subsidize those services for schools
and libraries," writes Arshad Mohammed of The
Washington Post.

Companies subsidize the fund with revenue they take
in for interstate and international telephone calls,
and many companies pass costs onto their customers.
In addition to telephone and Internet providers raising
their rates, voice over Internet protocol providers
may have to follow suit, because they would contribute
up to 64.9 percent of their revenue to the fund under
the proposal, reports Mohammed. (Read
more)

Treating
illegal immigrants burdens rural hospitals with high
costs

Spanish-speaking immigrants are flocking to some rural
areas, bringing with them costly medical needs.

"While policy debates and demonstrations on immigration
persist, and its effects on rural health care are being
measured, demographers are trying to sort out why Hispanics
are moving all across the country rather than settling
in the southwestern United States, as they have for
years," writes Hope Hanson of The Rural
Monitor, a publication of the Rural
Assistance Center. According to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, about 14 percent
of the U.S. population is Hispanic, and that group is
the fastest growing minority in both metro and nonmetro
counties.

The migration of Hispanics into rural areas is creating
needs for changes in health care, writes Hanson. Although
Hispanics are starting to settle all across the U.S.,
hospitals near the Mexican border are incurring more
substantial costs from immigrants than those facilities
elsewhere. Many border hospitals treat immigrants who
suffer injuries while attempting to enter the U.S.,
and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
reimburses hospitals only for people taken into custody.
According to the United States/Mexico Border
Counties Coalition, in 2000, border hospitals
reported a total loss of $189.6 million in providing
uncompensated emergency care to illegals.

One possible solution to the financial drain on hospitals
would be granting immediate amnesty to immigrants and
making them eligible for federal assistance, reports
Hanson. For now, though, federally funded health centers
are alleviating some of the financial burden on rural
hospitals, because they are able to help uninsured people,
both new immigrants and citizens, without draining the
hospitals. (Read
more)

Should your
rural hospital remain in critical-access status? Consider
this

Many rural hospitals have remained in business by taking
"critical access" status, which guves them
larger goverment payments in return for limiting the
numbers and stays of their patients. Only two hospitals
have take the status and then given it up, and one provides
an example for rural media to cite in questioning whether
their hospital should remain in such status.

When Westlake Regional Hospital in
Columbia, Ky., became a critical-access hospital, its
bed count was cut from 77 to 25 and its average patient
stayed less than 96 hours. "Last year, Westlake
again was on the cutting edge – this time by becoming
just the second critical-access hospital, out of more
than 1,200 nationwide, to convert back to general, acute-care
licensure. The other is an Indian Health Service
hospital in Whiteriver, Ariz.," writes
David A. Gross of the University of Kentucky
Center for Rural Health, in the latest issue of Kentucky's
Rural Health Update.

The Kentucky hospital made its decisions based on "careful
analysis" of financial concerns, collaboration
with critical-access hospitals in adjoining Green and
Casey counties, and ability to build its patient numbers.
“It’s surprising,” Steve Hirsch, coordinator
of the Rural Hospital Flexibility Grant Program in the
federal Office of Rural Health Policy,
told Gross. To download the Rural Health Update with
this story, click
here. (The PDF file is large, 8 MB.)

Oil-shale
development studied for Utah, Wyoming, Colorado; Kentucky?

High oil prices have renewed interest in oil shale,
which can be mined and processed into synthetic crude
oil. Oil shale is found in many places, including the
Piceance Basin of northwestern Colorado and parts of
Wyoming and Utah, and the knobs that border Kentucky's
Bluegrass Region on the west, south and east.

The mother lode of oil shale is the Piceance Basin,
of which Tom Kenworthy of USA Today
writes, "There is no dispute that a thousand feet
below the isolated ranch country here on Colorado's
western slope lie almost unimaginable oil riches. It's
locked in sedimentary rock — essentially immature
oil that given a few million years under heat and pressure
would produce pools of oil easy to extract. The Energy
Department and private industry estimate that
a trillion barrels are here in Colorado — about
the same amount as the entire world's known reserves
of conventional oil."

Tests are being conducted on ways to extract the oil
that are more economical and environmentally friendly
than previous attempts, which surged with oil prices
in the late 1970s and early 1980s but were abandoned
as not cost-effective. Various studies and skeptics
have cited likely negative effects, such as large-scale
land disruption and air and water pollution. Of particular
concern in the Piceance Basin is a large population
influx to a rural area, and a huge demand for water
in a region where it is scarce. (Read
more)

Companies
to get tax breaks for offering broadband in rural Wisconsin

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle signed a bill this week that
will provide tax breaks for telecommunication companies
that extend broadband Internet service into the state's
rural areas.

The "Broadband Deployment Act" provides income
and franchise credits to help companies buy the equipment
needed to provide broadband service. Throughout the
country, rural areas are often neglected by telecommunication
companies because of the high costs of installing broadband
equipment. The tax breaks are only available for companies
that expand into areas currently without service.

The act is designed to spur economic development with
the use of the Internet, reports the Pierce
County Herald. (Read
more)

Rural bridges
seen as keys to past, road blocks for growth in Texas

Rural bridges are fading fast across Texas because
of outdated designs, poor construction and claims that
they impede development. But local historians want to
preserve such bridges to fight urban sprawl.

"It's a story that's been playing out for years
across Texas. When bridges are judged deficient or obsolete,
they qualify for federal funding. When that money becomes
available, the structures can be removed, repaired or
left alone, depending on their condition or historical
significance," writes Roy Appleton of The
Dallas Morning News.

In recent years, Texas officials spent about $3.1 million
and committed $5.3 million more to restoring historic
bridges. More than 10,000 of the 49,000 bridges in Texas
also qualify for federally funded replacement or rehabilitation.
Instead of rural bridges being replaced, preservationists
say the bridges should be left alone to halt the spread
of development, reports Appleton. (Read
more)

Thursday,
June 1, 2006

Highway
amendment may OK new billboards that violate local laws

An amendment to the Highway Beautification Act passed
in the U.S. Senate earlier this month could give some
states the power to allow advertisers to rebuild billboards
destroyed by nature, even if replacement is forbidden
by a local law.

"On May 4, the Senate attached the billboard amendment
at the last minute to the controversial $109 billion
emergency appropriations bill, which is designed primarily
to fund wars in the Middle East and provide relief for
areas hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005," writes
Daniel Jackson of the Press-Register
in Mobile. "The House's version of the spending
bill did not include the billboard amendment, Brinton
said. A conference committee made up of members of both
Congressional houses will soon negotiate the final form
of the act before it is sent to the president."
(Read
more)

Thirteen states are seeking an exemption from the act
including Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma,
Texas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi,
North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. A Tampa
Tribune editorial sharply opposes the amendment:
"It takes an act of nature to force landowners
to update unsightly billboards, and now Congress wants
to remove even that tiny requirement. . . . Like Joe
Camel billboards, this proposal should be snuffed out.
Allowing billboards to be built free of current design
standards is not good public policy." (Read
more)

America's ability to combat any outbreaks of animal
diseases could be significantly damaged by a projected
shortfall in the number of food-animal veterinarians,
according to a new study.

The study, conducted by Kansas State University's
College of Business Administration, projects a major
shortfall in the vets, which specialize in handling
livestock, by 2016, reports The Associated Press.
"Not having enough veterinarians in rural communities,
out in the field, to do adequate disease surveillance
threatens our food security," said Dr. Lyle Vogel,
director of the Animal Welfare Division of the American
Veterinary Medical Association. "For the
first time, this study has scientifically documented
there is a shortage and shown the shortage is going
to get worse."

The study found that while the demand for food animal
veterinarians could increase 12 to 13 percent over the
next decade, four out of every 100 jobs will not be
filled. The shortfall is expected to affect the U.S.
Agriculture Department's Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service, which protects U.S. agricultural
health, notes AP. (Read
more)

Elderly people are choosing to live in rural areas
because they get more in-home services and are shown
to live longer lives than their counterparts in urban
locales, according to University of Missouri
researchers.

"Elderly residents of rural areas often face greater
challenges than their urban and suburban peers in gaining
access to transportation and health care. Missouri ranks
13th in percentage of population over 65 with 1.5 percent
of the state population older than 85, the 2000 Census
said," writes Tom Long for the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch. "Despite the challenges,
some studies have shown benefits to spending one's autumn
years in the countryside, particularly for men who farm."

Many people over the age of 85 living in rural areas
are residing in homes they have owned for long periods
of time, said Daryl Hobbs, a rural sociologist at the
university's Center on Aging. Also,
many rural seniors own their own homes, notes Long.
(Read
more)

Three financial
parties to net awards for investing in rural America

Three financial institutions with investments of $160
billion-plus in rural areas will get the first-ever
"Making Rural America Work" awards as part
of Stand Up for Rural America Day, at noon June 6, at
the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Centerin Washington, D.C.

Receiving the first Making Rural America Work awards
will be: Bank of America, which has
invested $52 billion in rural markets since 1999; Fannie
Mae, which since 2000 has invested $108 billion
to help provide rural families with affordable homes;
and The Federal Home Loan Banks, whose
Affordable Housing Program has played a part in the
development of 135,000 affordable homes for rural Americans.

"Stand Up for Rural America Day, sponsored by
a national coalition of rural community development
supporters, will also feature addresses by U.S. Department
of Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns and Kansas
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. Panel presentations will cover
rural hurricane recovery on the Gulf Coast, the impact
of rural community developers and changing rural demography,"
according to a press release from the Center
for Rural Strategies. The press release
is not available online.

Appalachian
county wants natural-gas producers to pay more taxes

A real-estate tax dispute between an extractive industry
and one Virginia county is the latest chapter in the
long saga of Appalachian counties attempting to get
extractive industries to share more of the tax burden.

Several Virginia counties have recently engaged in
tax assessment battles with industries, because they
want the companies to take on a bigger tax load. Jodi
Deal of The Coalfield Progress in Norton
uses a dispute between Equitable Resources
and Wise County to lead into a story about ongoing regional
negotiations to determine how true values of gas wells
should be determined.

"But in years past, commissioners of revenue .
. . have been assessing each well based on the average
cost of drilling a well — a method still used
by Wise and Buchanan [counties]. No depreciation was
factored in for a well’s age, nor did commissioners
consider the amount of gas each well produced in a year.
The companies’ dissatisfaction over these assessment
methods was about to erupt into litigation by CNX
against Buchanan County in 2004," writes
Deal. "Instead of seeing local governments and
gas companies duke it out in court, (state Sen. Phillip)
Puckett decided to bring representatives from both sides
to the table, to see if an agreement could be reached."
(Read
more)

After 18 months of negotiations, southwest Virginia
commissioners of revenue and representatives from the
Virginia Oil and Gas Association decided
new wells will be assessed individually, reports Deal.

Panel says
1898 Wilmington, N.C., race riot was only U.S. coup
d'etat

"North Carolina should provide economic and social
compensation to victims of Wilmington's 1898 racial
violence, said a panel that also concluded the attack
was not a riot but rather this country's only recorded
coup d'etat," writes Mike Baker of The
Associated Press.

Baker documents the event in further detail: "By
killing and terrorizing blacks in Wilmington on Nov.
10, 1898, white supremacists were able to overthrow
government officials in New Hanover County at gunpoint
-- the only recorded violent government overthrow in
U.S. history, according to the 500-page report, produced
after six years of study. The plot ushered in a new
anti-black political era for the Jim Crow South and
ultimately cut black voting rights." (Read
more)

Mark Schreiner of the Wilmington Star-News
delved more into the recommendations with his coverage:
"The commission recommended that several newspapers
- including the Star-News - which reported on the event
as it happened, to work with the North Carolina black
press association to prepare a summary of the commission
report, study the effects of 1898 and impact of Jim
Crow on the state's black press and endow scholarships
for black journalists." The paper's Executive Editor
Tim Griggs said, "The Star-News will do everything
it can to report on both the lessons learned from 1898
and the commission's findings. The paper will also work
with other state media to address the commission's recommendations."

The commission's recommendations include establishing
a new redevelopment authority in Wilmington and economic
incentives to encourage minority business and homeownership
in the Northside and Brooklyn, where the racial violence
took place. The report also states that minority homeownership
should be increased and maybe the government can "use
its eminent domain power to acquire vacant commercial
properties" for such purposes, reports Schreiner.
(Read
more)

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, enraged Republican
lawmakers by using a partial veto on a bill meant to
spur economic development in rural areas, and an attempt
to override his veto failed Wednesday.

"The Legislature approved the 'Rural Jobz Act'
in March requiring the Department of Commerce
to set up 10 rural enterprise development zones where
businesses who locate or expand would be eligible for
a range of tax breaks. At the time, lawmakers from northern
and western Wisconsin hailed the bill as a way to help
their areas attract jobs. Doyle in April used his partial
veto power to strip the word "rural" several
times from the bill, to eliminate several tax incentives
he said were too costly and to allow Milwaukee and Madison
to compete for projects," reports The Associated
Press. (Read
more)

Wisconsin is one of the few states that allows governors
to change the meaning of legislation by deleting words,
characters and numbers. It can get very inventive. Doyle
is running for re-election this year and may face a
tough battle. The Rural Blogreported
on Doyle signing off on rural bills yesterday and on
his veto use in our May 4 edition. Click
here for the archived items.

Virginia
principal aims to make up for students' vandalism with
work

In Roanoke County, Va., Hidden Valley High
School Principal David Blevins is struggling
to find a community service project for his Virginia
students to perform during a trip to New York City on
June 16.

"He came up with the idea for a one-day community
service project after three Roanoke County students
-- two from Cave Spring High and one from Hidden Valley
-- were arrested in New York on May 7. The students
were charged in connection with an incident in hich
paint cans were thrown off the roof of the 20-story
Doubletree Metropolitan Hotel in midtown
Manhattan, slightly injuring a police officer and damaging
some police vehicles parked in front of the 17th Precinct
station," writes Jen McCaffery of The Roanoke
Times.

Blevins has spent hours talking to people in New York
and searching the Internet for a project that can be
performed by 29 student volunteers, notes McCaffery.
When Blevins contacted the Doubletree in New York, he
was told having students clean might violate union constraints.
The 17th Precinct liked the idea of students working
there, but the station is under renovation. Blevins
also suggested the students could wash police cars,
but that would have to take place in the middle of busy
51st Street. (Read
more)

KKK protest
over graduation prayer sparks counter-protest in Kentucky

Prayer is a hot-button issue for Kentucky high schools
holding graduations, and students in Shelby County held
their own protest over the KKK coming out against a
student who did not support the prayer idea.

"Although the student body has split over a Muslim
student's complaint about traditional prayers originally
scheduled for Friday's graduation, they united after
a member of the KKK disparaged the student and the school's
decision to have no official prayer. More than 40 seniors
gathered across from the Shelby County courthouse to
support diversity and togetherness," writes Cassondra
Kirby of the Lexington Herald-Leader.
(Read
more)

Shelby County's Sentinel-News reported
in a Tuesday night update, "Although reports are
conflicting and there was confusion as to what time
the event would take place Tuesday, police said only
one member of the Ku Klux Klan arrived to protest outside
Shelby County High School. A Louisville
Klan unit was to protest the prayer issue at the school
graduation." (Read
more)

Even so, school Principal Gary Kidwell said he decided
to make admission to the ceremony ticket only partially
because of the prayer issue, but mainly to ensure that
each student's family members could get into the Frankfort
Convention Center, which has a capacity of about 5,000,
Terri Miller of the Sentinel-News reported in Wednesday's
paper. (Read
more)

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